


Self Sovereignty

by Lady_Bluebird



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anal Fingering, Body Worship, Enthusiastic Consent, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Knotting, Levi is Whipped (Shingeki no Kyojin), Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Masturbation, Omega Eren Yeager, Power Bottom Eren Yeager, Soldier Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), from the past not within ereri or by characters alive in the fic's present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:28:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28672257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Bluebird/pseuds/Lady_Bluebird
Summary: I’ve never met this black-haired, grey-eyed soldier before, but I know him. I stumble backward as something deep within me clicks, and a barrage of thoughts and emotions that aren't mine cracks open my skull.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 157
Kudos: 439





	1. Revolt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw this chapter for gore and several (brief, as in one or two sentences) memories of rape. This was originally going to be a lengthy one-shot, but there was too much going on. The way the natural chapter breaks worked out, this is the heaviest chapter, so it's all uphill from here. :)

I wake up to somebody screaming.

That isn't unusual. Neither is the body tumbling down the stairs into the catacombs. What is unusual is that the screams and body belong to an alpha, and when he slams into my cage’s bars, the key to my freedom jangles in front of my face. 

I bolt upright from the moldy straw bedding, yelping when my head hits the roof of my cage. The body on the other side of the bars isn’t screaming anymore. It doesn’t make any sound at all. 

Glancing around me, I realize that the cages on either side of me are empty. Where are the others? Scenting the air, omegan fear and alphan arousal leave me retching. They must have taken the others up to entertain guests at one of the royal family’s feasts. If I wasn’t the troublemaker, the bitch that couldn’t be trusted to take important guests’ cocks in his mouth without biting down on them, they would have taken me, too.

I glance at the body again. Death is revealing. Between the fingers curled into the beginning of a fist and the caved-in face twisted in terror, he looks pathetic. One hand still flops over his side, and from what I can tell, the fall didn't kill him. He was shot.

More screaming from upstairs.

What the fuck is going on up there? Did he come down the catacombs to hide? Light from the open door at the top of the stairs shines down on me and the body, dancing off of the corpse’s key. 

Taking a shaky breath, I count to ten. Then I count to ten again in case I counted too fast the first time. Nobody appears at the top of the stairs. The key lures me in. 

_Pain. Being pinned down, throat hoarse, struggling against grips on my wrists and ankles so tight I think the betas will break them. Searing agony._

_"Trying to run away? This is what you get, omega whore." Burning flesh smells like steak._

I touch the brand on my thigh. 

Fuck it. Even if I stay, when another guard comes down, it won't matter whether or not I was the one who killed him. They'll find an excuse to punish me.

I take the key. 

I scramble to unlock my ankle shackle, trembling so badly that it takes me an eternity to fit the key into the keyhole, and then, staggering to my feet, jam it into the lock on my cage. The door screeches when I shove it open. 

If the guards catch you running away a second time, they cut your achilles tendons so there won't be a third attempt. 

My muscles revolt when I stand up, sore and cramped after hours spent crouched in the dark. I relieve the body of its long knife. 

They will not mutilate me a second time. If they catch me, they'll have to kill me. 

I'm going to find the king.

I rush to the top of the stairs as best as I can with how little food I’ve had. Cold, fresh air goosebumps my bare body. Shouting, thudding, and the rat-tat-tat of automatic weapons hits me from all directions, and my head reels. Where’s the fighting? In front of me? Downstairs? The castle’s high, stone ceilings amplify even the most distant noises, so it’s impossible to tell. 

Gritting my teeth, I brave the palace. 

I’ve been above ground many times since I turned fifteen, but never unshackled like I am now. Moving is so much easier this way. I navigate without thinking, too familiar with the path to the king’s room. 

Turning a corner, my stomach lurches as a potent cocktail of fear, blood, and feces hits my nose. A bloated body sprawls across the velvet carpet. Stepping closer, my feet sink into semi-congealed blood. 

The corpse’s face is almost completely gone, blown to pieces, but I would recognize his family ring and body anywhere. _His weight on top of me suffocating me, reeking, grunting, he’s one of the ones who likes it when you cry –_

I swallow my bile. Good riddance. All of the alphas and betas in this shithole can burn in hell. If I end up down there with them, I want to be the demon who tortures them. 

The bodies are more common after that. I race through the castle, gasping for breath. My ears ring with a cacophony of battle noises, and I'm hyperaware that I'm headed in the same direction as the dead. Oh, goddess. Are the others okay? If the nobles took them upstairs and fighting broke out, then they’re probably caught in the middle of it. I always check the corpses’ faces, terrified to see who it is. To my relief, I don’t miss the ones I recognize.

Indistinct male voices, and not yelling ones, echo in a hallway to my right. I run faster. 

When I reach the king's bedroom, I slow down, checking the hall for soldiers. Nobody. Where are his guards? The fight must be desperate if they’re willing to abandon their post. Is there a coup? An invasion? 

Whatever's going on, I doubt it’ll turn out well for me, but I’m going to rebel as much as I fucking can before a new overlord declares change and then treats omegas exactly the fucking same as the old king did. 

Is the king even here? I pause. Could he have left to fight?

There’s no way he would fight. He’s too much of a lazy fucking oaf. 

My body revolts when I reach for the doorknob. This room is hell. _Looking into the wide, blue eyes of the other omega while they cry, the horror of knowing the only reason the king hasn’t touched you is because he wants you to watch him take them first-_ I bend down. Throw up. Wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Remind myself that I've barely outrun whoever else is in the palace.

I’ll make the king pay. 

The room is dark, but I know the king’s body well enough to make out his shape cowering on the bed. I squeeze the knife’s sweat-slicked blade. Approaching the bed, my heartbeat thunders in my ears. What a fucking coward, hiding while someone skewers his minions. I wish I had the time and power to repay everything he’s done to me in full. 

I tighten my grip on the knife. The wooden handle groans. 

The king’s squints in the dark. “Eren?”

I drive the blade into his jugular. 

We scream at the same time. The king jerks, clawing at the dark spring bubbling up from his throat. I scramble on top of him so he can’t roll away, driving the blade deeper. “Don’t-,” I wrench it out. He gurgles something that’s supposed to be a curse. “Say-,” I stab him again. His chest resists the blade more than his throat did, and I throw my weight on the hilt to get deep enough. “My-,” Something cracks. A rib, maybe. I tear the knife out. “Name!” And drive it in again. 

“Fuck you! Fuck you!” I lose track of my movements. My hands are dark and slick with his blood, and I can barely hold the blade. “Fucking monster!” There’s salt in my mouth. Blood. Or sweat? Tears? I can’t tell. He stops thrashing, but I can’t stop, so eighteen years of fear, pain, and rage pull him apart like he pulled me apart. I am the architect of the justice this hell never gave me. 

I lift the blade again, but my exhausted body spasms, so I drop it. I heave in the dark, slowly coming back to myself. Balancing on rubbery legs, I turn the bedside light on and stare at the king. He looks like swiss cheese. Afraid swiss cheese. This is the first time that this room has smelled like an alpha’s fear instead of an omega’s. I like the change. 

Heavy footsteps – combat boots? – echo in the hallway. I freeze. Shadows move beyond the door. 

“Oh, Jesus.” The deep voice reverberates through my bones. “You smell that, Erwin?” 

What’s their dynamic? 

“Be careful, Levi.”

Fuck. I can’t stop two of them. 

The doorknob turns. I brace myself. When it opens, I hurl myself at the body on the other side. 

He grabs my wrist before I can blink. “What the hell are you trying to- fuck!” He lets me go like I burned him. 

We lock eyes, and my heart drops out of my stomach. 

Oh, no. 

Please. 

I’ve never met this black-haired, grey-eyed soldier before, but I know him. I stumble backward as something deep within me clicks, and a barrage of thoughts and emotions that aren't mine cracks open my skull. The alpha groans and massages his temples. 

I can’t tell where his confusion and turmoil end and mine begin, but one concept is clear to both of us in the midst of our hurricane. 

Mate. 

His horror clouds my thoughts, and, as I realize that he knows exactly what’s happened to me and why I’m standing in front of him, drenched in his target’s blood, my own revulsion joins his. So does terror and sickening shame when I remember that, as always, an alpha has seen my body without me being able to choose to take off my clothes. 

“Get the fuck away from me,” I spit, taking another step away from him. 

“Omega,” The second alpha, a blond man, says. I spin around. When did he come into the room? He stands by the bed, staring down at the body that was the king. I back away from the soldiers, shrinking into a corner so that I don’t need to turn my back on either of them. The other one, who I will not call my mate, stares at a space above my head with an impenetrable expression. He's reeling in my head. Their uniforms, black fatigues with crossed white and blue wings on the sleeve, are unfamiliar. It's an invasion, then.

“Omega,” The second alpha says again, wisely keeping his gaze above my neck. 

“My name isn’t ‘Omega,’” I hiss.

“My apologies,” He soothes. He's polished, unbothered by the destruction around him, and it sets me on edge. “What would you rather us call you?”

The dark-haired alpha’s eyes burn me. “You don’t need to know anything about me,” I say. 

The blonde alpha inclines his head. “As you wish. Did you do this?” He gestures to the bed.

“He deserved it,” I say. Victims aren’t supposed to be aggressive. It makes you less sympathetic, less innocent, less believable, but of course I hurt them when I got the chance. 

“I don’t doubt it,” The blonde says. The other one doesn’t say anything.

“Are there other nobles alive?” I ask. 

The blonde warily regards me. “Do you want to kill them, too?”

“They treat us like cattle,” Worse than cattle. People don’t rape their cows. “I’m going to kill them all.”

“We beat you to it,” The second alpha interrupts. I can’t help but get pulled into his steel gaze, and curiosity threatens to overwhelm me. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Good riddance. “The other omegas,” I demand, “where are they?” 

The dark-haired one hesitates, and my heart sinks. “What did you do to them?”

 _“We_ didn’t do anything,” He snaps. 

“We launched our attack this afternoon because we knew there was a feast planned,” the politician-esque one says. “All the omegas, well.” He gives me a pointed look, “almost all the omegas were upstairs in the dining hall-,”

“I know that,” I hiss. “Where are they now?”

“As far as we know, they tried to take advantage of the chaos caused by breaching the wall,” My not-mate says. “The guards didn’t have time to subdue them, so-”

My legs give out, and I sink to the floor. “No,” I whisper. 

“I’m sorry,” The blonde says. 

“No, no no.” I bury my face in my knees. 

I don’t want to cry in front of these alphas, but hot tears fall down my cheeks. 

The dark-haired one says something that doesn’t register and takes a step toward me. 

“No!” I jerk away. “Don’t fucking touch me!” The tears fall faster. 

A muscle in his jaw ticks, but he withdraws. One - Both? - of us is in pain. Then, to my amazement, he bares his throat to me. The air thickens with soothing pheromones. My instincts want nothing more than to sink into him and let him make good on his scent's promises to _protect, reassure, trust _.__

___No._ _ _

____

An explosion rattles the windowpanes. He swears.

____

“Erwin.” He turns away from me to address the other soldier, and I brutalize my disappointment. “We need to go.”

____

The blonde – Erwin – frowns at me. 

____

“What?” I demand. 

____

“Do you want to come with us?”

____

My lip curls. “Are you serious? No.” 

____

Levi’s jaw works. He moves away from us to pace the room, running a hand through his hair. “Levi,” Erwin says. 

____

_Levi._ My inner omega purrs. 

____

_Shut the fuck up._ The only thing holding the bond together is instinct. There’s no such thing as fate, and the mating bond doesn’t mean love. It only promises physical compatibility, and the thought of sex sickens me. There’s no reason to make an idiot out of myself for this stranger like a naïve teenager. 

____

“You have to come with us,” Levi says.

____

I recoil. “You aren’t going to make me do anything.” Unless he uses an alpha command. I'm fucked if he does. “Why should I trust you?” I demand, pressing my back against the wall. He made me drop the knife, bur if he tries to grab me again, I’ll claw his eyes out. 

____

“You know I’m not going to hurt you,” He says. 

____

It’s true, maybe. There are too many emotions roiling in the bond for me to distinguish them all, but I don’t recognize wrath or sadism in the maelstrom. 

____

“Leave me alone,” I say, climbing to my feet. Where can I run if they try to grab me? The window? The door? Fuck, there aren’t any good exits. 

____

“Look,” Levi says, “the city is ours, but a dead king doesn’t automatically win a war. There are still plenty of scumbags to clean up. Lots of opportunists and rogue military officers will consider claiming kingship when they learn that their leader died. What do you think will happen to you in the skirmishes?”

____

“I can take care of myself,” I say.

____

“Not right now, you can’t. You look like you’re about to pass out.” 

____

Right on cue, vertigo hits me like the guards do, and I stagger, slamming a hand into the wall to hold myself up. 

____

“You want us to leave you unconscious here?” Levi says. His concern comes through the bond in smothering waves. 

____

I swallow back tears. “Give me my knife back. Then I’ll leave with you.”

____

“Absolutely not,” Erwin says.

____

“Do you want to attack us?” Levi asks. 

____

“Do you deserve it?” I respond. 

____

Levi snorts. “Not the way the king did.” Erwin looks at him, then at me, and his brow furrows. 

____

I lick my lips. “I want to be able to defend myself.”

____

Levi turns the stolen knife over in his hand.

____

“Levi,” Erwin warns. He probably thinks I’m completely unhinged. I almost laugh.

____

Levi hands me the blade. “If you try to stab me again,” He says, “I’ll fight back.” He isn't lying, and yet, I know his instincts revolt at the idea of hurting me. _Strange alpha._

____

I bare my teeth at him. “Don’t give me an excuse.”

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for trying my fic, and I hope you liked it! Tune in next time for Eren building a life beyond the palace, Armin being wonderful, and some initial ereri bonding. Kudos and comments power my soul. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


	2. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figuring out how to coexist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOOOO this beast was a pain in the hiney to edit, but I'm excited that it's done! Thank you guys so much for all of the initial enthusiasm and sweet comments, it means the world to me!
> 
> tw this chapter for a brief allusion to past sexual assault

When I wake up in a bed instead of my cage, I suck in a breath to scream, but the room’s scents of bleach and linen, not omegan fear and alphan arousal, stop me. I release my stranglehold on the sheets. 

Early morning light filters through the curtains. Someone left folded clothes on the bedside table, and my knife and the key from the catacombs lie next to the pile. I bring a shirt to my nose and inhale deeply. It only smells like manufacturer’s chemicals. 

I blink back tears. This was all prepared especially for me. Do I get to keep any of it?

If I do, what’s the catch?

It’s so _quiet,_ and it takes me a moment to pin down why. Consumed by morbid curiosity, I reach out across the bond, searching for the alpha, only to touch a mental wall. My skin prickles. 

Brushing my discomfort aside – it shouldn’t feel strange to be alone, this is what I want - I climb out of bed and test my legs. They hold me up fine, but the cold floor makes me hiss. Looking down at myself, I realize with a jolt that someone clothed me while I was asleep. 

I pull back the curtains and unlock the window. Crisp, fresh air floods my lungs, and I lean outside, enraptured by the sunrise.

We got natural light in Mitras, but the windows were upstairs, so I’ve only seen sunrises in fleeting glimpses. _And whenever the sun rises, it’s when you’re chained in an alpha’s room, and the moment they wake up, they’ll-_

Bathed in the beautiful sunrise, I puke out of the window. 

Someone knocks on the door. 

I freeze. Who’s there? Levi’s eyes flash through my head, and my stomach somersaults. 

Another knock. “Hello?” A male voice, but not his. 

“What do you want?” I call.

“I brought you breakfast.” My stomach rumbles. “and you’re probably wondering where you are.” 

I scent them as best as I can through the door. An omega. 

I open it. 

The blonde man on the other side reminds me of a fae, slim and long-haired. “Hello.” He smiles. “My name is Armin.” 

“Eren.”

He holds up a tray of pancakes and eggs. “Can I come in?” 

“Sure.” I step aside, and he sets the tray on my bedside table. “Thank you.” 

Armin gestures to it. “Start. But slowly, otherwise you’ll make yourself sick.”

“I know.” I try my best to take small bites, but goddess, it’s so good. Armin nurses a massive coffee and eyes me over the cup’s lip. 

“Where am I?” I ask.

“Paradise Island military barracks. The Scouting Legion’s fourth division barracks, to be precise.”

I stop shoveling food into my mouth. “What?” How many people are here?

“Scouting Legion special forces were the ones who found you during the Mitrian operation,” Armin explains. “They brought you back here.” 

Seeing my expression, he adds, “This part of the barracks isn’t the main sleeping area, don’t worry. Soldiers won’t bother you here.” 

“Who is here, then?”

“Legion leadership. This is the officer’s wing,” Armin says. “It’s not protocol, but Commander Smith -,” He says the name with a slight smile “- thought that it would be best if you had your own space.” 

He takes a deep breath. “Paradise and Mitras have been at war for years, even since their human rights abuses came out. The commander’s division has laid siege to the capital for the past month, but our deep sleeper agents inside the interior walls were only able to open the gates to us late last night. Once we breached the walls, the palace fell easily.”

In the catacombs, guards talked about how cushy a position it was compared to “the front”, and I overheard more than one noble advise their friends on how help their sons avoid conscription. I never thought that whatever was going on would affect my life much, though.

“Are you sure that there weren’t any other survivors?” I ask. 

Armin purses his lips. “I’m sorry.” 

I push the food away from me. Freedom costs so much. It’s not as if any of us expected to live long lives, so the others’ deaths aren’t surprising, but I care about them, and they were so close to escape. 

“Who’s the man with caterpillar eyebrows?” I ask. 

Armin laughs. “That’s the commander.”

I shouldn’t ask.

I don’t want to ask. 

I have to ask. 

“Is Levi here?”

“Levi? Oh, Captain Ackerman. I’m not sure whether he’s here right now or not, but yes, all of the officers have quarters in this wing.” 

Captain Levi Ackerman. Somewhere in my genetic code, too small for me to see, a line of nucleotides decided that Levi Ackerman is my mate. 

“Eren, are you okay?” Armin asks.

I test the bond again. Still a wall. 

“Armin, are you a soldier?”

“Usually,” Armin says. “Major Hange assigned me to check up on you, though, so I’m a field nurse right now.” He flashes me a slight smile. 

“Major Hange?”

“They’re the legion’s doctor,” Armin explains. “They would come see you themself, but they thought it would be best if you talked to an omega.” 

Armin is slim, but he’s all lean, steely muscle, not waiflike like the omegas in Mitras, where we could never hold anything sharp, let alone be soldiers. 

“If it’s not protocol for me to be here,” I ask, “Then why am I?” To be an alpha’s plaything, again?

Armin presses his lips into a thin line. “The military thinks that you’re a security risk. Or at least the MPs do, and they decide how refugees are rehomed.”

A security risk? “Oh.” Because of the king. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“When you’re ready, Nanaba’s always looking for more help around the barracks,” Armin adds.

“Your bosses don’t know what to do with me, huh?” I ask. Armin flushes. “It’s okay, I get it.” I wouldn’t know either, if I were them. 

Actually, there’s nothing hypothetical about it. I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life. 

“Listen, Eren.” Armin scoots closer to me. “I don’t know exactly what they did to you in Mitras, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I can say that, however they treated you there, Paradise isn’t the same.” He offers me a small smile. 

I want to believe him, but I always have to fight somebody. 

Armin leaves when I finish breakfast, saying that he has to go to conditioning, but he gives me some multivitamins and a promise to come see me later. Hunger sated, I turn to the next discomfort: I’m fucking filthy. 

My room has an attached bathroom, complete with a tub and shower. Undressing in the mirror, I gasp and cover my mouth. The man staring back at me has sunken eyes and hollow ribs. Last week’s blotchy bruises, fading to a jaundiced yellow, circle his throat and splatter his hips. The royal crest branded into his upper thigh is inescapable. 

Is this really the body that I borrow from my rapists? They fucked it up so bad. 

When I’m done washing my hair, I can’t bring myself to touch this skin, so I sit in the bottom of the tub and sob under the running water.

I spend the rest of the day switching between staring at the door, wanting to see what’s beyond it, and napping instead because I can’t trust this world. I can’t remember when I had a bed that wasn’t conditional on letting the other person in it do whatever they want to me, and I savor the comfort, wrapping myself up in blankets until the top of my head barely peeks out from under the covers. My naps are mostly dreamless, but periodically, a nightmare wakes me up in a cold sweat, and I can’t fall back asleep until my thoughts drift back to a certain alpha. 

I still can’t breech the wall. My instincts thrash. Where is Alpha? Every attempt to distract myself loops back to him. I’m stumbling through a deep forest, trying to find paths out of the woods but always walking in circles. 

Armin comes and goes over the next couple of days, bringing me food, conversation, and knowledge. He shows me how to read with the Paradian newspapers and magazines, and brings me books on every topic under the sun. The travel guides, full of countries with brightly painted architecture and elaborate dishes, are my favorites. 

When I prod him, he talks about the other soldiers. Most of them are alphas or betas, but there are a few other omegas besides Armin. I want to meet them. 

But I do not want to meet a legion of alphas highly trained to hunt and kill. Not after the palace. Every time a door opens somewhere in the hall, or footsteps creak across the floorboards, I freeze, bracing myself for someone to open the door. 

One morning, a whistle wakes me up. Shouting drifts through my always-open window. “What do you think we’re doing, Blaus, fucking yoga? Put some energy into it.” 

I jolt upright, heart in my mouth. _Levi!_ My instincts sing. I’m at the window before I can stop myself, peering down at the unit doing training exercises in the courtyard below. Levi stalks between rows of soldiers, barking orders. 

“Kirstein! Springer! Either share your conversation with the unit, or shut the fuck up. Gossip on your own time. Nice job as usual, Ackerman. Arlert, pull your shoulders in a little before you punch” 

The military drills are mesmerizing. The unit moves through their exercises fluidly, synchronized in the most frightening, alluring dance I’ve ever seen, and I’m caught between _They could use that against me_ and _I want to learn to do that._ The raw power under Levi’s skin is as exhilarating as it is terrifying. He makes the seven-minute planks and knife drills look easier than breathing, fighting equally well with the blade in his left and right hands. 

Has he been here this whole time? I haven’t seen him until today. Why hasn’t he come to see me? Trying to respect my space? Waiting to gain my trust? I bite my lip. What is he thinking of me behind that wall? 

He looks up at me. 

I jerk away from the window, heart pounding. Oh, hell. That’s enough voyeurism for today.

But I keep replaying his training until I fall asleep. How does somebody learn to move like that?

“Do you want to be red or black?” Armin holds up the two checkers pieces. 

“Red.” He nods and starts arranging the chips on the board. 

“Armin, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure. Also, it’s your turn to go first.”

I move a piece. “You can’t tell anyone I asked you this, okay?” 

Armin forgoes analyzing the board. “Of course. Is there something wrong? Did anyone try to do something to you?” 

I shake my head. “This is hypothetical.” 

“Okay.”

“Only hypothetical. ” I fiddle with a spare chip. “If, hypothetically, two people were supposed to be mates… You know how mates can, y’know, read each other’s minds?”

“Well, it’s not reading minds so much as it’s an astronomically heightened awareness of each other’s emotions. Which, by the way, is fascinating because it happens so quickly and on such a minute scale that it’s difficult to tell whether the bond only makes someone incredibly sensitive to their mate’s pheromones or there’s really a neurological link that spontaneously forms when-,” 

“Armin, that’s really interesting, but, um-,”

“Sorry! Yes. I know what you mean.”

“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Hypothetically. For these hypothetical mates. Would it be hypothetically possible for one of them to seal the other off from the bond?”

Armins frowns. “You mean, could they break it?”

“No, more like…. can they mute it?” 

Armin frowns. “I don’t know, but maybe, if they were strong enough, they could suppress it. That’s too painful for many people to do, though.” 

“Oh, okay.” I stare down at the checkers board. Fuck, Armin is going to beat me. Again. 

“Hey, Eren?” Armin says.

“Yeah?”

“If you want to talk to me about anything, I’ll always listen to you.”

“Do you mean Mitras?” I pick up a checker. I’m screwed pretty much no matter which move I make, but this one is the most spiteful. 

“No,” Armin says. “Well, yes, if there’s anything from Mitras weighing on you that you want to talk through, I’m here for you. But I meant you and the captain.”

I drop the checker. “There is no ‘me and the captain’. I don’t know him. We’ve talked once.” 

“Okay.” Armin turns back to the checkers. “Do you want to play again?” 

I nod. Every game, I try to beat him, and every game, he thwarts me. I’ll get him one day, though. The student will become the master. 

I sneak glances at Armin while we set up the pieces, but he’s intent on the board. “He’s supposed to be my mate,” I say.

Armin nods. “I thought so.”

“How did you know?” I ask. 

“You said ‘hypothetically’ too many times.”

My face burns. 

“The way you asked about him on the first day told me,” Armin adds. “I suspected before I met you, though. I was with the legion in Mitras, and the captain was borderline feral when he and Commander Smith came out of the castle with you. He didn’t want people to touch you, even Marco, one of my friends in special forces who’s also an omega, or me. Major Hange had to sedate him before they examined you.”

Part of me purrs. _Alpha’s watching out for us._ The other part of me says, “Of course he would be overly territorial like that.”

“Maybe,” Armin says, “but I don’t think I would describe it that way. Would you have trusted them to touch you either? He protected you because you couldn’t protect yourself.”

Okay, but still. “I don’t want his protection.” My instincts beg to differ. 

More time passes. It becomes easier and easier to read the newspapers, and I follow stories about how the East Sea confederation will mediate negotiations for a new Mitrian government. Paradise demands that some surviving officials face charges for crimes against humanity. Armin points out Paradian faces in the newspapers, and I put a clipping of Queen Historia, the omega who rules well and alone, on my wall. 

When I read articles, the question that I keep seeing is, how? How does an entire country, with millions of people, normalize such horrific abuses? How did nobody sound the alarm sooner? 

The papers think too highly of people. 

“Eren,” Armin says, “It’s your turn.”

I stop pacing and come back to my cards, studying my options. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I would be restless too.” I make my move and go back to my route around the edges of the room. I like my room, but it’s small, and every morning, the sun beyond the window triggers a familiar hunger to be anywhere but here. 

The wall isn’t helping.

“Eren,” Armin says, “I know that it’s frightening, but I think you need to leave your room.”

I almost stumble. “I can’t.” There are two many people beyond my room’s walls, too many unknowns, too many chances for people to sneak up behind me, gang up on me, turn this place into another nightmare – 

“We can do something together, if that would help you feel safe,” Armin suggests. “Just us.” 

I curl my hands into fists to keep them from shaking. My nails bite into my palms, and the sting grounds me. 

I still can’t do it. 

“Again!” Levi’s voice echoes from the courtyard below. I know I’m asking for it when I leave my window open, but hearing him soothes my instincts’ anxiety that he isn’t here. 

Today, his unit’s practicing hand-to-hand combat drills. 

“Bott!” Armin’s friend! “Good form, but shift your stance a bit. Remember to make yourself as small of a target as possible.”

“Yes, sir!” The omega punches the air. 

I try to ignore the muscles rippling under Levi’s uniform. I’m not going to think about the sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. Or the way his bangs fall into his face and he has to push them back, raking his hands through his hair and only messing it more. Or how I want to fix it. 

When Marco moves, I imagine being him, striking the people who tore me apart for their own enjoyment. Armin said that he was with the division that took Mitras. 

I want to help others get their freedom too. 

The fantasy is what finally makes me leave my room.

It’s two thirty-seven in the morning. I stand in front of my door, staring at the wood until I can trace every line and grain, trying to decide whether the soft thumps I hear are real noises in the barracks or my racing heartbeat. I crouch down and peer under the door. No boots on the other side. 

Gritting my teeth, I make my hand turn the knob. 

The hallway is empty, and there are few enough scents that I can distinguish individual people who have passed through: Armin. An alpha I can’t place. A beta I can’t name, but whom I’ve smelled on Armin. Maybe that’s Major Hange? Another semi-familiar scent, Erwin.

And Levi. The scents of leather and black tea are everywhere, soaked into the walls and floorboards. I take a deep breath as the python squeezing my heart releases its grip, wanting to smell Levi on my _clothes sheets skin-_

I press my palms into my eyes, trying to stay sane. 

Someone’s awake in their room, light shinning from under the door and throwing a golden rhombus over the floorboards. I hurry past them, trying to make as little noise as possible, and descend into the barracks.

This was a terrible idea. I thought that at night, the barracks would be deserted, so it would be safe to leave my room, but night also means that, if someone does want to hurt me, nobody will be awake to help me fight. My throat closes up. 

The scents of hundreds of soldiers blur into a mercifully indistinct mass. Despite the tension, it feels so good to be somewhere new, exploring a different place, even if it’s still inside. 

A cool night breeze wafts down the hall, and I follow it until it brings me to a massive, high-ceilinged room. Exercise machines and mats stand in orderly rows, surrounding a raised ring. Somebody opened all of the tall windows to air the gym out, and countless stars wink at me from the night sky. 

Do the soldiers here do anything other than hone their bodies? First they do drills in the morning, and then, what, they come here? _No wonder our mate is so strong._ Shut up! 

Pale moonlight illuminates a raised ring like a dais. I step into it. Rock back on my heels to get a feel for the mats. Swing my arms a little, loosening them up. Stare down the dreamed person in the opposite corner.

Then, closing my eyes, I replicate Levi’s courtyard drills. 

The gym becomes my temple. During the day, I watch the soldiers to perfect familiar moves and find new ones, and at night, I slip away to the gym to hit, kick, and dodge the alphas who haunt me until exhaustion forces me back to my room and I sink into mercifully dreamless darkness. I still avoid mirrors and don’t know what to make of Levi, but it becomes easier and easier to believe Armin and open that door every night. 

The punching bag lurches under my fist. I jump back, throwing up my arms in a defensive stance and pausing to catch my breath. Stray sweat drops burn my eyes, and my shoulders scream, but I’m not done yet. Every night, I further decimate my demons, and tonight, the bloated punching bag is the equally bloated Lord Reeves. I land a roundhouse kick to the top of the bag, breaking his nose. He was the noble who made me feel the most disgusting, and he’s going to pay for it. I’ll shatter his fucking eye sock-

“So this is where you disappear to at night,” 

I whirl around, forgetting Reeves when I see Levi leaning in the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” I demand, letting my hands drop to my sides.

Levi’s expression is unreadable. “I didn’t realize that you had a monopoly on the public exercise room.” He moves across the gym, making a point to stay in my line of sight. “We all have to unwind somehow, yeah?” 

“You’ve never come down here before,”

“Usually, I do.”

“No you don’t, I’ve never see-,” Oh.

“Don’t bite your tongue off.”

I watch him stack weights on the bar until he turns and meets my gaze. “Do you mind?” My chest is tight again.

“You blocked off the bond,” I blurt.

“I did.” 

“Why?” I ask. 

Levi turns away again. “I don’t need the constant reminder that you resent me for something beyond my fucking control.” 

My heart twists. “I don’t resent you."

Levi sighs. “You sure as hell resent the bond,” He adjusts the bench. “And that’s fine, I didn’t ask for this either-,” That shouldn’t hurt, but it really does- “but I can’t control the connection any more than you can.” Now he does look at me. “As you were. Don’t let me distract you.” 

I turn back to the punching bag with a bad taste in my mouth, painfully aware of Levi benchpressing three times my body weight in the corner of my eye. _Show Alpha what we can do,_ my omega coaxes.

I give in - but not because of the bond. Alphas aren’t the only ones who can make a point of their strength. I kick Reeves in the balls. While he’s stunned, I come in for a quick second strike, driving an uppercut into his ribs. He staggers toward me. I hop backward and let him pass me like a matador dodging a bull. 

I want him to cry for his mother, and then curse her for bringing him into this godforsaken world. I’ll break him like I did the king, like I did all the nobles who I fought before him, beating them into the floor, then through it, straight down to hell.

“Ah!” Pain shoots through my fist, and I double over, cradling it to my chest. “Fuck!” My eyes water.

“Eren?” Levi’s next to me faster than I can blink. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. Fuck! 

“Let me see.”

“I’m fine,” I insist. “See?” I flex my fist, but another arc of pain forces a yelp out of me. Levi’s eyes narrow. I want to die of embarrassment. 

“Don’t be a dumbass,” He says. “Give me your hand.” 

Grudgingly, I hold out my wrist. He handles my hand like it’s a butterfly, prodding my knuckles until he brushes a spot that makes me flinch. “Eren,” Levi says, “show me how you make a fist.” Frowning, I demonstrate with my good hand. Levi swears. “Your technique is shit. I’m surprised you didn’t hurt yourself sooner. Look, make one like this.” He bends my hand into a better fist. “You never put your thumb on top of your fist like that. That’s asking for a broken bone.” 

The mixture of pain and his touch leave me light-headed. “Is it broken?” 

“No,” Thank goddess. “It’s a nasty sprain, though. I can give you some painkillers and bandages.” 

I pull my hand away. “It’s fine, I can ask Armin to get me some tomorrow.”

“You want to sleep on it like that?” Levi asks. He nods at my swollen knuckles. 

“I’ve slept on worse,” I say. 

Levi clenches his jaw. “Your blustering doesn’t mean shit to me, Eren. I know that you’re strong. This is just being stupid.” 

I stare at my fist. 

“I’m not trying to make you trade help for anything,” He reassures me.

My throat constricts. I can’t forget what happened to me. But It’s also illogical that, if he wants to hurt me, he wouldn’t have done it already. 

“I-.” I stare at my hand. It’s turning purple. “Okay.” 

Levi’s room is the one that always has the light on. “This is where you keep medical supplies?” I ask, staring at the door. 

“Is this okay?” Levi asks.

“Yes.” He stares at me, hard. “It’s fine.”

“You look like you just shit your pants. If it makes you feel better to go elsewhere-,”

“No.” I grit my teeth. I have to stop being skittish around every little thing, or I’m going to lose it. “It’s fine, seriously.” I can handle being in his room with him. If he tries anything, I’ll break his nose.

Levi shrugs and opens the door. 

His room is clean and sparsely furnished. My instincts, blissed out by being in _Alpha’s nest,_ clash with my nerves. I scan our surroundings for Levi’s personal touches, hungry for insight into the mind that I’ve been barred from. Levi turns his back on me to open some dresser drawers, rummaging for the first aid kit. 

_Oh, goddess, the bed._ Tucked-in white sheets. Fluffed white pillow. I can imagine the bodies on it. Dark spots dance at the edges of my vision. 

“Eren?” Levi asks. I shut my eyes, trying to chase away the memories. “Are you alright?” I wrap my arms around myself as the room lurches. 

“Give me a moment,” I croak. 

"Here. Is it okay if put my hand on your back?" I nod tightly. 

Levi steers me into the hall shutting the door behind us. Immediately, I feel less suffocated, but my stomach still turns. 

Quiet. Levi’s breathing, slow and even. Nausea persists. Then, slowly, something brushes again my mind, caressing the border of my consciousness. I shiver.

“Yes,” I permit. The barrier lifts. Levi’s concern and reassurance envelop my psyche, harrying the dizzying memories. The same soothing promises the bond offered the night I met him make me sag now, heart rate slowing.

When I open my eyes, Levi kneels in front of me with furrowed brows, gauze in hand. “I can’t look at it,” I tell him, giving him my injured hand.

“Then focus on me,” He says. 

I do, but he’s hard to look at for too long, so I watch him bandage my wrist instead. “I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.” My eyes start watering again.

“Progress isn’t linear,” Levi says. He has nice hands. Calloused, but with long, dexterous fingers that dance over mine. "If you want, the legion psychologist does therapy work. I can get ahold of her for you." 

“I'd like that. Thank you." 

"Mmm." 

"I’m sorry,” I tell him. 

“Don’t be.”

“No, I mean -,” Levi watches me flounder. “I don’t think that you’re like them, but I’m so - it’s – trust is hard.” I stare at the floor.

“I said.” Levi finishes taping the gauze in place, “don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault that those fucking assholes hurt you.” In our heads, his wrath is beyond words. 

That’s the worst part. Why am I the one who has to deal with their consequences? Even my future is theirs, their torture reaching me even in death. “I hate them and monsters like them. They’re the scum of the earth.”

"They are," He agrees. 

He doesn't say that like he's trying to be empathetic, and his emotions are too jagged for someone who only know through taking Mitras. He knows. "Do you...?"

Levi sighs. "My mother was a prostitute until she died. Some of the clients were alright. Most of them were horrible to her. It's not the same as your situation, but I understand how those kinds of men and women act, and how they affect people."

"I'm sorry," I whisper. 

"It happened a very long time ago," Levi says. 

"Still, that's horrible. I don't think my mom's death will ever feel... alright." Levi makes a soft sound. "She tried to protect me from the nobles," I murmur, "but she protested too hard, so... that was it."

"I was the one who got to eat," Levi says. 

“Mmmm.” 

He’s so careful when he touches me. My ears burn. 

"I want to keep what happened to her and the other omegas from happening to anyone else," I say. “As soon as I can, I'm going to join the legion." 

Levi winces. "What?" I ask. 

"It's not that glorious," Levi says. "Sure we help people sometimes, but often? We're a joke.”

“You guys didn’t seem like a joke when you blew up the palace,” I point out. 

Levi shakes his head. “When you fight for the legion, you spend months living in a monkey house full of hormone-ridden barely adults who don’t know how to wipe their own asses, and then when you are deployed, you spend months hiking through the woods, getting eaten by ticks and shitting in holes, for almost nothing. You were the only omega we airlifted out of the palace out of how many? At least a hundred? We barely save anyone.”

He finished bandaging my hand a while ago, but he hasn't let go of it. I don't want him to.

"I know a lot of soldiers who aren't here anymore," Levi says. He has the look in his eyes of a man three times his age. "I can't tell you what to do, and if you really want to do it, I get it. I know what needing to escape helplessness feels like, and why you see the military as an out, but you should think very, very carefully about what you want to do."

“Yeah.” I flex my bandaged hand. The bindings don’t give. How many times has Levi bandaged someone like this? Or bandaged himself? “Levi?”

“Mmm?”

“In the bond… It’s okay. You don’t have to lock yourself away so much. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” It’s agony, being cut off from the person you’re supposed to never be cut off from. Especially after all the loss he’s experienced in his life, to have your own mate shove you aside must be unbearable. 

His pain flashes across my mind, and I wince. Alpha’s still hurting.

“Eren,” Levi says, “if you want the bond open, what do you want from it?”

“I…. I don’t know.” The nausea returns. I look at my hands. “What do you want?”

Levi sighs. “I don’t expect anything from you,” 

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “It’s not fair to put you in limbo like this.”

“Eren… fuck.” He scrubs his face. “First, you’re entitled to your boundaries. Second…” 

“Second?” I prompt.

Levi sighs. “You deserve to be happy. You should be able to fall asleep every night in a warm bed, with a full stomach, next to somebody who you love, unafraid whether someone will take advantage of the dark.” Pink creeps up his neck. 

My heart is about to jump out of my throat. “Do you want to become that person I love?” I ask.

“They should be whoever you want them to be.” 

I scowl. “That’s not an answer.” 

“The bond isn’t everything,” Levi says. “I shouldn’t be a factor in your choices. It’s your life.”

He’s right, but, “Suppression didn’t work,” I say. “I think we just have to learn how to coexist with each other.” And as much as I don’t know what to make of the bond, it lets him comfort me in a way that nobody else can, and I ache for that. 

“I might not know what I want,” I say, “but I know that it hurts like hell when I can’t feel you there, and I bet it doesn’t help you, either. So… let’s figure out how to deal with it.”

“But is that what you want,” Levi says. 

For all of his irritation and gruffness, he’s been kind. Thoughtful. Tender. Trustworthy, when I can convince my head not to be stupid. “I want to know you. I can’t tell you I want courting” I clarify, “but I don’t really know you, and I want to.”

He stares at me for a long moment.

“Okay. Let’s take it one day at a time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the ereri bonding didn't turn out quite as soft as I thought it would, sdvnkdjnckdsjb but next time, I promise it actually will be. They needed to sort some shit out.


	3. Reimagine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The legion horses do God's work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Another quick update? From _me_? I'm as surprised as you are. Thank you all for 100+ kudos! I hope you have as much fun reading this update as I did writing it. :)

“I won't pressure you into doing anything that you aren’t comfortable with,” Armin says, “but if you want to do something different, I can introduce you to some people. I went through cadet training with them, and they're trustworthy.”

I trust Armin. But still. “Maybe soon. Not now.” Losing my primary coping mechanism while my wrist heals makes the nightmares worse, and I’m getting antsy, but… I don’t know. 

He nods and stands up, stretching. The book in my lap displays a glossy spread of the edge of a white beach licked by a sapphire sea. I saw ocean paintings in Mitras, but I thought the bodies of water in them were larger versions of the palace ponds, unnamed lakes beyond the outer walls. Not the ocean. “Have you ever seen it?” I ask Armin.

He smiles. “My first year in the legion, my unit went on an exploratory mission.” His eyes glimmer the same blue as the photographed waves. “The ocean is beautiful to look at, but to dive into it… you can’t tell from the surface how much is down there. It’s incredible. We only took the submarine to the edge of neritic zone, the part of the sea near the coast, but there are all sorts of reefs and fish species that look like something you would see in a fantasy novel.” I flip through the next couple of photos, fascinated by the elaborately finned and colored animals. 

“That one’s you.” Armin points to one of the fish.

“Pufferfish?” I hold up the photo, scrutinizing the tight-lipped, wide-eyed, rotund puffball. “I’m sensitive and pissy? Wow, thanks.” Sounds more like Levi, if you ask me. 

Armin nudges my shoulder. “No, because you’re kind, but you also kick ass, and people don’t fuck with you when you’re angry.”

I squint at him for a moment, just to make him squirm. “Good save,” I relent. “I’ll allow it.”

A knock on the door. I set the book aside. Did Hange come to check on me? I’m not expecting anyone. 

“Eren,” Levi rumbles on the other side, “it’s me.”

Oh. Well then. I open the door, heart pounding. 

He’s out of uniform, which disappoints me until I take stock of his tight-fitting civilian clothes. “Why are you here?” I ask. Shit, that sounded harsher than I wanted it to. I’m acutely aware that my bed is unmade and I draped last night’s dirty clothes over my desk chair. 

Levi keeps his eyes on me. “Arlert.”

“Sir!” Armin says behind me.

“Am I interrupting?” Levi asks. 

“Actually, Sir, I was just leaving,” Armin says. Snake! He presses himself against the doorframe and squeezes past us. Once he’s safely behind Levi’s back, he flashes me a thumbs up. 

Taking as subtle of a deep breath as I can, I cross one leg over the other and lean against the doorframe. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re going crazy,” He’s right, but I’m not going to ask him in which way he’s acknowledging that, especially since I don’t know how to articulate it myself. “and I know something that can help.”

“What?”

“Have you ever ridden?” Levi asks. 

"Um. Like. Horses?" Because he definitely doesn't mean-  


"Horses," He confirms quickly, eyes widening.

“There are horses here?” The king’s brother had horses. He brushed them until they shone before he bred them in hopes of creating better and better racehorses. I identified with the mares a lot. 

“They’re for ceremonial purposes now,” Levi says. “They’re patient, and they don’t spook.”

I frown. “You say that like you think they’ll need both of those traits with me.” 

He makes a soft chuffing sound that I realize, after staring at the shape his mouth makes for too long, is a laugh. “Do you want to go riding?”

How many times have I looked at the plains and forests in Armin’s books and imagined the wind on my face?

“Sure,” I say.

Since it’s almost dinnertime, the stables are deserted. Levi retrieves two mares, a piebald pinto that dances on the lead line and a stocky dun that lets Levi handle her with familiar amiability. “Here, take this one.” He gives me the pinto’s lead. “And hold on tight, so she thinks you know what you’re doing.” 

I look into her eyes. “She knows I’m bluffing.”

Levi snorts. “Then hang on tight.”

I scowl at him. “You’re going to make me to fend for myself?”

“I’m right here,” He says. 

Warm, I avert my eyes. “Do they have names-fuck!” I ask. I run a hand down the pinto’s jaw, and she tries to bite my finger off. 

“That’s Cleo,” Levi says. “This one’s Hestia.” The dun rests her head on his shoulder. “Have you ever saddled a horse before?” I shake my head.

Levi shows me the basics: Don’t drop the saddle on their back, they’re too used to the new recruits to buck, but you still don’t want a thousand-pound animal to be pissed at you. Make sure you can fit two fingers under the girth so it isn’t too tight. Give them the bit gently. I feel like an idiot trying to get a feel for the reins, especially when Levi’s signals to Hestia are so slight that it seems like she reads his mind, but when I can more or less get Cleo to trot, Levi steers Hestia through the padlock gate and toward the open plains beyond the base, and Cleo, with some insistent kicking, follows. 

Once sitting on top of a living tank stops feeling foreign, my heart soars. The air smells different out here, with the base’s lights out of sight, and the landscapes goes on and on, extending every time I think we’ve hit the horizon. I know from Armin’s books that we’re on an island, and the edge of Paradise isn’t, compared to some other countries, that far away, but the evening sky, stretching above us like a darkening sea, continues to spread over never-ending land. 

Levi, riding next to me, pulls forward. Hestia weaves to cut me off. Gritting my teeth, I squeeze my mare’s sides, coaxing her faster, and guiding her alongside her comrade. Levi looks me in the eye, wind throwing his hair around his face. Is my heartbeat that loud, or are those hoofbeats? Leaning back in the saddle, he tilts his head back and breathes in the wind. Through the bond, our thrills feed into each other’s, and my head spins.

Letting a giveaway smile spread over my lips, I coax Cleo faster. Levi’s eyes widen as we fly past him, and he urges his own mare onward, but mine, getting a taste of the lead, refuses to give it up. I cling to the reins for dear life, wondering how I’m going to make her slow down.

Luckily, after we lose the lead and take it back again, tearing across the island, my horse slows down by herself, and we stop on the top of a hill, gazing down at a massive forest. 

Hooves thump behind us as Levi catches up and brings his horse to a stop. 

“Wow.” I’ve never seen such a pitch-black night sky. It must be the absence of light pollution this far from HQ. 

Levi squints at the heavens like they're going to rob him. “It looks like it’s going to storm,” He mutters. It smells like it, too, ozone thick in the air. 

“So what if it does?” I ask. The moonlight paints his skin pearl. 

“Brat,” He says. 

Cleo tugs the reins out of my hands so that she can graze. _Speaking of brats..._ “How far is the ocean from here?” I ask Levi.

He raises an eyebrow. “Too far to reach tonight.” When I glance at the horizon, he adds, “The horses are too tired.”

I resign myself to ocean-lessness. For now. 

I yelp as Cleo moves, clinging to the saddle as she turns to reach a choicer patch of grass. I flash Levi and his polite horse a dirty look. “I thought you said the legion horses are gentle.”

“They are,” He says. “She’s listened to you, hasn’t she?”

“Kind of. She takes a lot of convincing.”

“You’re too rough-handed,” Levi says. “Horses aren’t cars. If you want them to do something for you, you have to ask nicely. How would you like it if someone sat on your back and kicked you in the stomach? You have to work together.” 

Levi dismounts, and I follow his lead, trying not to fall off of the horse. The grass is soft and springy, and I sink into it, lying down on the hillside. The plains whisper as Levi sits down near me. 

The longer I look at the sky, the more stars come into focus. 

“They’re supposed to make images,” Levi says, “but whoever decided what shapes they make can’t draw for shit.”

“The stars?” 

“Mmm. People trace three lines in the sky and call it a crab.”

I grin. “You have to use your imagination, you know.”

“That’s not an excuse for bad design,” He mutters. I laugh into the dark.

“Armin says that most of the stars are so far away, this isn’t what they really look like,” I tell Levi. “Some of them are gone now. We’re looking into the past.”

“That’s depressing.”

“I guess so, but it’s pretty.” 

We don’t say anything for a while, but the silence is comfortable. “Thank you,” I tell him, “for showing me this.” 

“It isn’t a big deal.” 

“It kind of is, though. I needed this.” When I roll over to face him, he’s already looking at me. “It’s not a bad thing.” 

“Good,” He says, and my – his – our – contentment makes me melt into the grass. 

I still don’t fully trust what the bond means, but it has one good thing going for it: Levi is the only person who can completely understand what my brain does to me, and not having to either constantly explain myself or accept that I can’t explain myself is a weight off of my shoulders. 

For a moment, Levi lights up bright as day, and I didn’t think moonlight could do that, but then a second bolt of lightning dances in the distance. Thunder swallows Levi’s next words, but I intimately know the shape of “fuck”. 

The storm throws down droplets that burst like grenades. I laugh and tilt my head back, savoring the water running down my spine. 

Levi nudges me with his boot, and I grin up at him. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of the rain!” I shout over the storm.

“Dumbass.” He crouches down so that I can hear him, and the slight centimeters between his lips and my ear tingle. “I’m scared of pneumonia, and you should be too.”

“Pneumonia can kiss my ass,” I grumble, but then water rolls down my spine, and I jump up with a shudder. Levi doesn’t say “I told you so,” but I _feel_ him thinking it, so I scowl at him. He ignores me and turns toward the horses. 

Thunder roars again, so loud that the ground shakes, and- “CLEO, NO!” The mare bolts, ears flat against her head, and tears off toward the barracks. I lunge for the reins, but I can’t get a grip on the slick leather. I go down hard, barely rolling out of the way in time to avoid a hoof to the skull. 

“Eren!” Levi roars.

“I’m okay!” Fuck! He helps me up, and we watch the pinto disappear over a hill.

“They’re patient, you said.” I say. “They don’t spook easily, you said. Aren’t military horses supposed to be used to loud noises?”

“We don’t take them into combat anymore.”

“Still!” But, soaking wet and breathless, he looks sufficiently chastened, so I let it go. For now. “I’m going to remember this,” I mutter. 

We both turn to Hestia, who has done the bare minimum and not run home like a coward. 

My stomach drops. 

Oh, shit, we’re going to have to ride together. 

Levi takes an unsteady breath. “Do you want to ride in the front or in the back?” He asks. 

“Um. I’ll ride in the front.”

He blinks. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “You can be behind me, I trust you.”

“I’m going to have to hold you.”

“I know.” First Armin conspired against me, and now a horse.

Hestia accepts me into the saddle without a fuss, and I study the reins’ braiding while Levi mounts behind me. This saddle isn’t meant for riding double, so it’s impossible not to be squished together.

“Is this okay?” He wraps his arms around my waist. 

“Yes,” I breathe. His heartbeat pounds against my spine, and I struggle to figure out how to handle _his hipbones digging into my ass, oh fuck._

“Hey, Eren,” He says, and maybe it’s just that he’s unimpressed with the storm, but he sounds ragged, “If you pull on the reins that hard, she won’t go anywhere.” 

Adrenaline and shared body heat stave off the worst of the cold while we race the storm, my bones vibrating with thunder and hoofbeats and two too-fast heartbeats. Around us, lightning strikes like claws from the heavens.

I burst out laughing, urging Hestia faster. Levi curses and squeezes me tighter, thumbs rubbing circles into my hips. His chin is on my shoulder and his breath is on my throat, and the image of him running his tongue over my scent gland dances through my mind

Maybe it’s the storm making me feel a little high, but I like it. 

When the barrack stables finally come into view, I groan. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Cleo grazes by the barn doors. Thunder rolls again. She looks up at us, swishes her tail, and goes back to dinner. 

Levi dismounts, stealing my warmth, and I shiver. He cranes his neck to look up at me.

I laugh. 

“What’s so funny?” I try not to think about how _his wet shirt clings to him, and the water on his collarbone could be sweat, or that I must look the same way to him._

“You’re kind of short.”

“Smartass, are you going to dismount or what?”

“Yeah, yeah, I will.”

I don’t move.

He keeps looking at me.

“Do you need help?” Levi asks. 

“No.”

“Then dismount, Eren, I’m fucking soaking out here.”

“Nobody’s making you stay outside! Get dry, and I’ll be there in a sec.”

"Eren," He says slowly, "You don't know how, do you?" 

"Yes! I do!" 

"Then get off." 

I scowl at him. "Don't laugh at me." 

"I'm not." 

"You are." 

“Eren, I swear to fuck-,” He takes a step forward, and I swing a leg over Hestia’s side to get out of the saddle and hop off. My leg jerks, and with a yelp, I tumble toward the mud.

Levi catches me by the waist. “Stubborn little shit,” He says against my ear, propping me up. I resist the urge to press myself into his chest.

I get my legs back underneath me, and Levi grabs Hestia’s reins. “I’ll put the horses away,” He says. “You should go change into warm clothes as soon as possible.”

“No,” I find my words, “I can help.” 

“You aren’t allowed to.” He’s grabs Cleo’s reins – and she doesn’t complain, oh my fucking goddess. “Go change.”

When I narrow my eyes at him, ignoring my shivers, Levi sighs and says, “If you get ready fast enough, I might still be here when you’re done.”

Deal.

I only have one other set of clothes. Another reason to join the legion: to make some money, so I can have more things of my own. Levi is still in the stables when I run back down, and he shows me how to lead the mares into their stalls, guiding them into a circle toward the back wall so they won’t walk right back out before I can latch the door. 

I think our quiet walk back to the officers’ wing is it for the night, and, trying to get warm in my blanket burrito, I’m content to nightdream about Levi lighting every cell in my body on fire. Then, He knocks on my door in dry clothes and offers me good tea. 

This. This is what I want my life to be like. With Levi, specifically? I don’t know, but…

I can see it. 

Levi and I go riding a few more times, when the weather is nicer. The memories are getting easier and easier to manage, especially since Hange started sending me to talk to the corps' psychologist, Nifa, once a week, but sometimes, they still split my chest open like an oyster, especially when I think about the other omegas. On those nights, Levi sits with me while I wait for them to leave me alone. His room becomes easier to handle, but, when it's bad, I usually feel better when he comes to mine.

Levi left my room an hour ago, since I found out that he and Hange have bickered about him not getting enough sleep. His scent lingers on the sheets and pillows, as soothing as it exciting. 

I tied the key from Mitras to a string around my neck, and I fiddle with it, tracing the cool brass. 

I swaddle myself in the bond, meditating the depths of our shared psyche. It’s calm now, but some emotions don’t fluctuate: Affection. Protectiveness. Empathy. 

Desire. 

The memory of his hands on my body earlier sparks a fire in my navel.

I don’t believe in fate. If it does exist, well, fuck you fate, you have a sick sense of humor. 

But still… 

I want him. Whether or not I’m capable of acting on that want is another question. 

The night that Hange clears me to fight again, I knock on Levi’s door. “Hange gave you the green light?” He asks. I nod. “Let me see.” He examines my hand. “It healed well.”

“I didn’t realize that I had to get your approval, too.” 

“You don’t.” his thumb brushes over my pulse. “Hange does, though.” 

“They outrank you,” I point out. 

“Not when it comes to you.” Well, fuck. 

“Come with me?” I ask. He lets me pull him down the hall. 

“Are you alright?” Levi murmurs. 

“ Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“You smell strange.”

“Gee, thanks.” 

“You still smell good.” My stomach flutters. “Just… different.” 

I shrug. “I might have a cold or something, but I feel okay.” I’ve had chills and a headache all day, but a rogue summer cold won’t dissuade me from coming to the gym now that I’ve been cleared. 

I burst through the doors, letting go of Levi to rush to the mats and refamiliarize myself with them. “Fuck yes,” I moan. My body thrums. 

I stretch, a cool breeze brushing my navel when my shirt rides up. Levi’s gaze burns my skin. 

“Are you’re just going to watch me?” I ask. 

“You’re the one who dragged me here,” He points out. “I already did what I needed to do today.” 

I wouldn’t mind him watching, but… “Spar with me?”

I revel in making his eyes widen. “And not like you’re afraid of hitting me too hard,” I add. “I can handle you.”

Despairingly, Levi closes his eyes. It’s playing with fire, but I can’t help myself. 

“I didn’t peg you as the type of man who’s afraid of fighting an omega,” I say.

“You can’t goad me like that,” He warns.

My lip curls upward. “Please?”

“Fuck,” He groans. “You wanna go?”

I bare my teeth at him, “Let’s fucking go.” 

Levi wraps his fist and joins me on the mats. Under his eyes, my body buzzes with electricity as I warm up, inwardly cringing at how sore and sluggish I feel. “I hope you’re ready for this,” I tell him.

“You’re telling me that?”

“Yes.”

“This is the first time you’ve spared with a correct fist, which I learned how to make before you were born, and you want to tell me that I better be ready for this.”

“Just start already.”

The next thing I know, I’m gasping for air, staring up at Levi’s face. Deadpan, he asks, “Were you ready for it,?” 

I can’t even be mad. “Again,” I insist.

This time, I go for his hair. 

He catches my wrist. “Fighting dirty?” 

“Can you handle that?”

He flips me onto my back again.

I wheeze. 

“I would ask if you’re sure you don’t want me to take it easy,” Levi says, “but I know that you’re too stubborn to admit it.” 

“There’s nothing to admit, because I don’t regret anything.” I glare up at him. He looks good from down here. 

“Again?” He asks. 

“Again. And stop laughing at me!”

He tilts his head. “I’m not.”

“On the inside, you are.” 

We go again, and again, and Levi knocks me to the ground for the umpteenth time. I flop back against the mat with a sigh. “I don’t get it. How are you this good?”

“I learned when I was nine.” He offers me a hand, and I let haul me to my feet. “And I’ve had hundreds of people to practice with. You just need more constructive feedback.” 

“Like what?” I ask. 

“Your form is pretty impressive, considering how you learned,” Levi says. “It’s better than most of the new scouts.” 

“But?” I raise an eyebrow, warm from the praise. 

“It could use some work,” Levi qualifies. 

“How?” I ask. 

“Get into defensive position.” He grasps my biceps, guiding them closer to my body. “Don’t stick your elbows out so much. Think about putting your body in one plane and making yourself look as small as possible to an opponent. Same thing with your knees.” I adjust my stance. “Better,” Levi approves. “You should practice your form in front of a mirror so you can easily correct yourself.”

“No.” I recoil. “No mirrors.” 

Levi blinks. “You can’t adjust your form by feel.”

“I’ll learn how to.”

“If you want to learn to fight well, that does yourself a disservice.” 

I grit my teeth. “I don’t care. You said that I’m good, right? I’ll figure it out without a mirror.” 

Levi frowns at me. “Why are you so adamant about this bullshit?”

“I-,” I close my eyes to hide how watery they are and hug myself. He’s in the bond, confused, searching, trying to wrap his thoughts around my fear. “I can’t do it.” 

Levi doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then: 

"Eren,” Levi says, “your body is yours.”

I open my eyes. “What?” 

“However other people try to hurt you, whatever people have done to your body without your consent, it is yours to use however you want. It always will be. Nobody can take your body away from you. Nobody.” He scrubs his face. “Fuck, I wish I could show you what you look like to me.”

My breath hitches. “What do I look like to you?” 

“Oh, hell,” Levi groans. “Eren, you’re the strongest omega – no, fuck, the strongest person – I’ve ever met, and the most beautiful. Do you know who saved you from Mitras?”

“You and Erwin did.” 

“No,” Levi says. “You saved yourself. Our intel told us that there weren’t any omegas left in the catacombs. If you hadn’t killed the king, we wouldn’t have known you existed.” I let him take a step closer. “You refuse to let anyone limit your freedom. Your mind, your body – nobody else can take them from you. You should be proud to see yourself in the mirror.” 

I don’t realize that I’m crying until Levi starts crooning, the low, rhythmic thrum reverberating through the room. I wipe my tears away with my sleeve and bite the inside of my cheek to stave off any new ones. 

“It’s okay,” He murmurs. “Cry if you need to.” I wrap my arms around his stiff torso and bury my face into his chest. His heartbeat races under my check, and I close my eyes, spreading my hands over his solid back. _This is safe. I want it._ Levi’s arms wrap around me, creating a fortress to defend me from the phantoms prowling in beds and mirrors and other people’s scents.

“Scent me?” I breathe.

“Are you sure?”

“If you want to.” When he groans, I offer him my throat, clinging to him as he slides our scent glands together. 

“Fuck,” I sigh, digging my nails into his shoulder blades. The aftershocks of crying still make me shudder a bit, but I’m warm and drowsy, Alpha’s embrace lulling me into a semi-docile state. “Thank you,” I murmur into Levi’s collarbone. 

“It’s true.”

“I’m sorry,” I sigh. We were having a good time. 

“Eren, I swear to Goddess, if you say sorry one more time, I’m going to tell Arlert to stop sneaking you extra cookies.” 

I kiss him. 

Levi’s lips immediately part under mine, and he slides his tongue into my mouth with a growl that makes my knees weak. I’ve been hot all day, but now I’m on fire. Levi tugs me closer by the small of my back as he deepens the kiss, and I run my fingers through his hair. 

Levi pulls away. His eyes are so wide. Adorable. “Eren.” His lips are so glossy, and I love the shape they make around my name. “Eren, are you sure you’re okay?”

“You keep asking me that.” I burry my face into his scent gland, inhaling our mingled scents. “Mmmmm. You’re too self-deprecating. I do care about you a lot, you know.” 

Heavy, persistent want clouds my mind. “Fuck.” The headache that’s nagged me all day rages with a vengeance. My head feels like mush, all my thoughts sluggish and melted. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, but I can’t suppress the ache blossoming inside of me. 

“Eren,” Levi says, abs tensing under my fingers.

“Hmm?” I reach behind me and grab the hand on my back, pulling it down to cup my ass instead. Levi makes a tortured noise and pulls away like I burned him.

I pull away. “What’s wrong?”

His chest heaves. “Eren.” His voice’s raw edge is new. I like it. “You need to go back to your room.” 

“What?” I tighten my grip on his shirt. My eyes water. “You don’t want to be around me?” 

Levi exhales shakily. 

“Eren, you’re going into heat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ope-


	4. Reintroduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren's heat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hit 15k ereri fics on AO3!!! It's a good night.
> 
> Also, while I was thinking about how to end this fic, I realized that I probably need to make it six chapters, not five ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ. I wanted to wrap it up in time for Valentine's Day, which won't happen now, whoops, but the next chapter should still come out right before the holiday.

“What?” Then his words register. “Oh my god.”

I stagger away from him, ignoring my instincts’ complaints. Stupid! I didn’t see it coming because my heats are too erratic, but it’s been so long, I should have expected something like this to happen. 

“I need to go back to my room – ah!” I double over, stomach cramping. 

Levi swears. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” I take a step. The room lurches. “Fuck! I don't know.” I spent the last couple of months honing my body, trying to reclaim it, and now my dynamic renders me helpless all over again. 

The room lurches again, and I find myself curled against Levi’s chest bridal-style. “I want to be alone,” I say quickly. 

“I know,” He soothes. 

I dig my nails into my palms and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to ward off the heat. The walk back to my room isn’t long, but right now, it feels like forever. _Alpha,_ my instincts croon. _He has us. He’ll take care of us._

No!

_He’ll make you feel better._

That’s not what I need. 

__

Levi tries to dampen his emotions, but his desire, heightened by my descent, is still palpable through the bond. So is anger, fear, frustration – can either of us hold back? My stomach turns. 

__

“Hold on.”

__

“Levi…”

__

“I know.” 

__

My stomach spasms again, and the insides of my thighs are wet. Levi snarls and tightens his grip. New waves of alarm and aggression flood the bond.

__

“Alpha!” I gasp before I can stop myself. 

__

“We’re almost there.” He groans. “Fuck, if we run into anyone -,” I whimper. “No, no, Eren, it’s okay, nobody’s going to hurt you.” 

__

“Too many scents.” I choke. I squeeze my eyes shut, the hallway becoming too much to process. I press my nose into his chest with a sigh, smothering the scents of all the soldiers traveling this hallway with his. 

__

“Alpha,” I repeat. It feels good to finally say it out loud, to not smother the part of me that always wants to call him that. Based on the broken noise he makes, he likes it too. 

__

I slick again, and I know there’s probably a wet patch on my pants right now, but I don’t care. I squirm, testing his grip on my thighs, and _if he only moved his hands a little higher-_

__

“Eren,” He warns. 

__

“I’m slipping,” I whisper. 

__

“Almost there.”

__

He practically runs the rest of the way and wrenches my door off on the hinges, setting me down on the bed. I stretch over the sheets, relieved to finally be safe in my nest, with sheets that smell like Mate and said mate looking down at me, but then he turns to leave. “Wait!” 

__

Levi doesn’t turn around. “I’ll get Four-eyes. They can give you something to help.” 

__

“I don’t want them to help,” I breathe. “I want you to.”

__

His shoulders stiffen. “Not like this.” 

I whimper when the door closes between us. 

__

Another cramp curls me into the fetal position, and I gasp as the another wave of slick coats my thighs. Levi’s right. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. But the image of Alpha leaving is agony, and I cover my mouth to stifle an involuntary wail. 

__

I tear off my clothes, the fabric like poison ivy on my skin. Nudity offers relief, but it’s short-lived, and soon, it feels like my skin itself chafes my muscles. I whimper into the mattress. 

__

“He’s in pain,” Someone says on the other side of the door. Levi! _Alpha hasn’t abandoned us after all._ My heart aches. “I don’t know what to do, Hange.” 

__

“Oh, Levi.” Why is Hange with my mate? Why would he rather be with them when I need him? My whimper echoes in the quiet room.

__

“Can you help him?” Levi demands. 

__

Hange sighs. “I have some suppressants, but if being with you is what brought it on, then I don’t know how helpful it will be. Sometimes the drugs aren’t effective after people find their mates.”

__

I don’t understand. If he’s right on the other side of the door, then there’s no reason why he can’t come in and soothe the ache. My emptiness hurts, and through the bond, I know it hurts him, too, but he won’t close the distance between us. Won’t come into bed, won’t put his arms around me, won’t touch me kiss me fuck me knot me.

__

“Do everything you can,” Levi says hoarsely. 

__

“Do you need someone to stay and watch you?” 

__

“I’m not an animal. I’m not going in.” 

__

“Okay. Give me a holler if you change your mind.” The doorknob turns. “Oh, Levi, give me your shirt.”

__

“What?”

__

“Trust me, it’ll help.”

__

The door opens. 

__

“Alpha?” I breathe into the dark, his scent rolling over me. 

__

“No, sweetheart.” The figure – tall, brunet, glasses – tilts their neck, letting me scent them. “Eren, it’s me, Hange.”

__

“Major.” I wrap my arms around the pillow, aching for some kind of connection, but the fabric chafes. “It hurts,” I gasp. I’ve never had a heat alone, and the absence of a partner, even one I don’t want, is as torturous as the fear of losing control. 

__

“Here, darling.” Hange sets a bottle of water and two white pills on the bedside table. “This will make it better.” They place a tote on the floor next to my pillow. “These things might help too, and this.” They press a wad of fabric into my hands. I whimper when Levi’s scent hits my nose, burying my face into the fabric. 

__

A low growl rolls through the room, and I mewl in response, pressing my thighs together. “Four-eyes,” Levi says, “get out of his nest.” He leans against the wall just beyond the doorframe. Every vein in his neck stands out. We make eye contact, and I shiver, too needy to be embarrassed. He drags his eyes away from me, jaw tightening. 

__

“Sorry, Eren, your bodyguard is impatient with me.” The beta winks and touches my forehead with the back of their palm. “So high already,” They murmur. “It’s going to be a bad one.” _Going_ to be a bad one? It gets worse than this? “I’ll come back to check on you later, okay?” 

__

Levi snarls again, and Hange hurries out the door. We make eye contact one more time before he closes the door, and I want to scream _Look at me,_ but words escape me. 

__

He feels, it though. And still leaves. 

__

Alone in my nest again, I shudder, writhing on slick- and sweat-soaked sheets. It’s too much. I fumble for the suppressants, almost dropping the water when I try to flush them down. 

__

_Too hot. Where’s Alpha?_

__

I mewl, and he croons on the other side of the door. Why does he only reassure me from afar? 

__

Time passes in an indistinct haze. Are the suppressants kicking in? Has enough time passed for them to kick in? I rub my face into his shirt, relieved to have something against me that doesn’t itch. 

__

Ideally it would be him that I rubbed against, but his clothes help too, and I shiver, Alpha against my chest and throat spreading my legs. 

__

Fuck, the suppressants aren’t kicking in. 

__

My gaze falls to the forgotten tote by my bed. What did Hange say? That it would help? Levi might be short, but he wouldn’t fit into that bag.

__

Desperate, I glance inside. _Oh my god._ I close it. Why would the major bring me sex toys? Nope. Nope nope nope. I don’t even know how to-

__

Another wave of slick cuts off my thoughts. 

__

I roll over and stare at the ceiling, head swimming. 

__

Am I even capable of pleasure? Wanted pleasure, anyway. I bite back tears. No matter what I try, I always end up weak. Damaged. Incapable of functioning like a normal fucking person. I throw my arms over my face. Pathetic. I can’t escape alphas’ holds on me. 

__

The bond is frenzied, both of us unraveling, but his comfort comes through. My heart wrenches. 

__

_“Eren, your body is yours. Nobody can take your body away from you.”_

__

Get yourself together, Eren. You’re an adult. 

__

I bury my nose in Levi’s shirt again, melting. I need him. I need to do something. 

__

I look at the tote again.

__

Well, fuck. Here goes nothing. 

__

I bring my fingers to my rim, amazed by how easily they slide across my puckered hole. Sighing, I spread my legs to get a better angle. What do I have to do to ease the ache? Carefully, I press down on myself with a finger, closing my eyes as it slides in without resistance. 

__

I can’t tell if it soothes my heat more than it excites it. 

__

One finger isn’t enough, so I add a second, then a third. I’m only familiar with myself this way through avenues that I don’t want to remember, so I block out my memories and start fresh, hungrily probing my body for the spot that I know is especially electric. 

__

Soft, slick sounds fill the room, and I twist my fingers, exploring the tight, wet walls squeezing them from new angles. Part of me feels… not like I shouldn’t be doing it, but definitely like I’m acutely aware that I’m not sure what I’m doing. 

__

_Imagine Alpha watching us,_ My instincts suggest. I shudder and hide in Levi’s shirt, gasping and bucking onto my fingers when his scent, still tinged with lust from carrying me, floods my nose. 

__

Finally, I find the spot that makes me jolt, and I cry out, electricity shooting through my body. “Fuck!” I assault the same spot, toes curling into the sheets.

__

It’s good. My frenzied heat instincts urge me on, and my back arches off of the bed, massaging my sweet spot with jerky movements. 

__

The pressure in my body builds higher and higher, promising imminent relief, but I can’t make myself come. Frustrated, I kick the mattress, trying to push my fingers deeper, harder, faster – anything to give me relief. 

__

My fingers aren’t enough. I need my mate between my legs, need to have him here so that I can show him exactly how to aim his thrusts when he takes me from behind.

__

Levi’s matching desires, riled up by my thoughts and the sounds that he can hear through the door, liquify my last surviving brain cells. 

__

I glance back at Hange’s bag. 

__

A dildo is not a real mate, but…

__

I pull my fingers out of my entrance, hissing at the empty feeling. Taking a deep breath, I reach into the tote again.

__

I run my fingers over the purple dildo that I pull out of the bag. Fuck. Am I going to do this? 

__

Okay. I’m going to do this. I plant my feet on the mattress and watch myself position the toy between my legs.

__

What does Levi’s cock look like? Obviously not purple, but beyond that, how would he compare? I bite my lip. 

__

Then, slowly, I press the toy against my entrance. Take a deep breath. Is this okay? Am I afraid? No. There’s no room for fear, only nagging, persistent need. I push it in. 

__

“Fuck, Levi,” I breathe, inhaling sharply when the plastic head slips inside of me. On the other side of the door, he snarls. Greedy, my hole clenches down on the toy inside of me, sucking it as deep as possible. I oblige, opening myself inch by inch until the base of the top digs into my ass. I whimper and squeeze the base of my cock. 

__

My body still aches, but the stretch between my hips is much more satisfying than the emptiness, and my muscles go loose with relief. Still not Alpha, but better than fingers. 

__

Taking my time, I pull the toy out and push back in, fighting my body’s suction. 

__

I don’t feel invaded, I feel perfect. 

__

Burying my nose in the shirt again, I work into a rhythm, crying out every time the plastic head’s ridges bump against my prostate. 

__

“Ah, Levi.” I run my hand down my burning torso and pump my cock in time with my thrusts. Tremors rack my body. On the other side of the door, Levi’s chest thrums with persistent growls. A warning to anyone who might try to get past him? A promise to me? Both? 

__

Finally, my peak stops evading me. I come with a cry, slick and come spilling over my skin. Panting on the mattress, I can’t bring myself to feel disgusting. I’m floating, set adrift by my afterglow. For the first time since my heat started, the air cools my bare skin. 

__

Hissing, I pull the toy out of me. Long strands of slick cling to it, and, again, _what would Levi’s look like?_ I wipe it off with the bedsheets and push it aside, finally exhausted.

__

It’s only a matter of time before the next wave hits. I close my eyes and get what sleep I can. 

__

Hange gives me the maximum dose of suppressants the next day, but they still don’t work, and I thrash in an orgasm-obsessed frenzy, struggling to trick my body into satisfaction. I swear that the suppressants have the opposite effect, because my need only grows throughout the day, and the tricks I’ve been using – the bond, Levi’s scent – work less and less. 

__

My heat peaks on day three. 

__

I’m demented, lurching through a fever dream, unable to find relief or pleasure in the avenues that have worked these past few days. My body screams at me for the sex I can’t give it until I can only cry into the mattress. 

__

It’s too much. 

__

_There’s a way to make it better,_ my instincts remind me. 

__

Impossible. I rake my nails over the sheets.

__

But… 

__

I take a deep breath, trying to stay sane enough to think. 

__

It’s risky. But-

__

Another round of cramps leaves me gasping. How long will this last before I pass out? It’s too much. 

__

I get out of bed and immediately crash to the floor. “Fuck!”

__

“Eren!” I’ve never heard his voice get so low and gravely before. “Are you alright?” 

__

Gritting my teeth, I crawl to the door and lean my head against the wood, panting. “Eren?” He asks again.

__

“Levi,” I croak, “I need you to come inside.” I close my eyes. “Of, um my room.” 

__

No response. “Levi?”

__

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

__

“Not for that,” I clarify. “Just…” I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry. “It hurts so much to be alone. Please.” I slide my fingers under the door, and his hand on mine takes the edge off. “I know that you feel it too.”

__

Something hits the door. Levi banging his head against it. 

__

“I trust you,” I say quietly. “And when I say that I want you to come in, it’s not the heat talking. I understand if you don’t want to,” I wet my lips the best I can, “but if you do want to, open the door.”

__

He doesn’t say anything. I close my eyes and focus on his warm hand. I’m so, so tired, but I’m too uncomfortable to sleep. 

__

The doorknob turns. Levi wraps his arms around me, and I curl into his chest as he noses at my scent glands, investigating distress and possible injury. He groans into my throat as the oil from my scent glands, thrown into overdrive by my heat, smears his face. 

__

He picks my up bridal-style _again,_ and I squirm. Hange took his shirt, but his pants prickle my skin like a thousand beestings when my ankles bump against his waist. “Take your clothes off,” I demand. 

__

Levi stiffens. “Eren-,” 

__

“I’m not afraid,” I tell him. “and it’s really rough. Feels like sandpaper.” 

__

He sets me down on the bed and unbuckles his belt. 

__

Mmm, yes. I like this course of events much more than how it played out the last time he carried me to my nest. I shiver when he pushes his pants down his thighs, thinking about all the skin I could mark.

__

His nostrils flare. I’m slicking again. 

__

He crawls into bed, leaving his remaining clothes crumpled on the floor. Greedy, I dig my nails into his warm, solid body so that my instincts will register his presence and shut up. They don’t, urging for me to do more, but I push them aside. 

__

“Don’t fuck me with your cock,” I whisper into Levi’s ear. “Don’t choke me, don’t bite me, don’t slap me, don’t call me names. If you try anything, I’ll castrate you, heat or no heat.” 

__

“I don’t doubt it.” I scoot closer to him, and something primal in me revels in exposing my vulnerable stomach to him, pleased to be chest to chest with Alpha. _This is how we lie with our mate,_ my instincts murmur. He wraps an arm around my waist, holding my snug against him.

__

“Is this okay?” He asks.

__

“Trust me,” I murmur, “You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”

__

He’s still so tense. I purr, and he immediately imitates me. 

__

“You’re not going to hurt me,” I whisper. “I-“ yawn. “Fuck.”

__

There’s nothing we can do that won’t rile us both up more, but fuck. I am. So tired. 

"You look dead on your feet," He murmurs, examining the dark circles under my eyes. I can only sigh. 

__

He nuzzles my throat, and I arch it for him. Both of us moan when he scents me. His erection digs into my hip. 

__

“Levi I…” My eyelids are heavy. 

__

“Rest,” He orders. 

"But you-," 

"It's okay, Eren." 

I debate whether or not to ask him, but if I can trust him to be there, then, "Scruff me? It helps." 

He exhales shakily, and I squirm when his hand tickles the back of my neck. Levi squeezes my nape, and my body goes slack. The room dims. 

__

“Don’t leave,” I whisper. 

__

“I won’t.” 

__

I press my face into his sternum and slide a knee between his thighs, tangling our legs together. “If you leave, I’m going to hunt you down.”

__

“But it’s not safe to leave your nest in heat,” He murmurs, running a hand up and down my spine. I shiver.

__

“I’ll make i’ safe,” I slur. 

__

Levi snorts. “Rest, Eren.”

__

I want to be intertwined with him like a Georgian knot, and my blood is still on fire from his touch, but now the scruffing's effects are irresistible. My eyelids droop. Levi’s heartbeat slows under my fingertips. He must also be exhausted from keeping watch.

__

Darkness is warm, and finally, I fall asleep.

__

Another wave of need wakes me up a few hours later, after the rising night plunges my room into darkness. Levi’s eyes glow in the dark like eclipsed moons, silver irises all but swallowed by his blown pupils. 

__

“Did you sleep much?” I ask. Even the slight rise and fall of his chest against mine is enough movement to distract me, skin on skin fraying my thoughts. 

__

He grinds his teeth. “Must- keep watch.” I run my hands over his chest, appreciating the thick muscle jumping under my fingers. I can only imagine how much effort it takes him to hold on, caught between _fuck, protect, comfort,_ and staying sane. He scent-marks me furiously, and my mouth drops open as our necks slide together. _We need Alpha on us._

__

We both groan when another burst of slick wets the inside of my thighs. _We need him in us, too._ I mouth at Levi’s collarbone, trying to distract myself from how empty I am, but it’s not enough. 

__

“What’s wrong?” He murmurs.

__

I shake my head. Gentle, strong, perfect mate. Sweating because of our shared body heat, I pant against Levi’s sternum, my thoughts dissipating as quickly as they form. _Let him please us._

__

_Yes. But just a bit._

__

“Hey, Levi.” I lick his creamy skin, high on his muskier-than-usual bergamot and leather scent. “Do you want to touch me?” 

__

He stops breathing. “Do you want me to.”

__

“Mmm.” I rub myself against him, making him snarl when I put pressure on his cock. The only thing I can hold on to is his – or is it mine, reflected? – desire to be careful. “I need it.” 

__

“Where?” Levi groans. 

__

Shuddering, I guide his hand between my legs, his calloused knuckles rough against my skin. I bring his fingers to my entrance. “Here?” He asks, voice rumbling in my ear.

__

I check myself again. Is this okay?

__

“Yes,” I breathe.

__

He presses the pad of his index finger against my hole, and it twitches. “Fuck,” Levi groans. “You’re so wet.” I grind onto his finger until it slips inside. Levi growls. “And so tight.”

__

“Move,” I beg, seizing his shoulders. 

__

He obliges, sinking inside of me as he plunders my mouth and swallows my soft sounds. It’s good, but not enough. I break away from his lips and gulp down air. “Another.” 

__

“Greedy,” Levi comments. He digs his free hand into my thigh with a “Fuck, I love your legs” and pulls my leg over his hip. I bury my face into his chest, devastatingly open for him, and he adds a second finger.

__

“Oh!” My toes curl. He reaches so much deeper than I could by myself. My instincts can’t help themselves, and an image of him inside of me in a different way flashes across my thoughts. He would have to push in so s-l-o-w-l-y after it’s been so long for me, the ridges of the head so much more pronounced and massaging than his fingers. I grind back on his hand as he pressing three fingers in to the third knuckle, lost in pleasure. Mindlessly, I touch him, scraping my nails over his arms, sides, and v. 

__

“Fuck,” I choke, bucking back on his fingers. He watches every roll of my hips like he’s figuring out the best way to make them ache. Hungry, I buck harder. “Levi, can I touch your cock?”

__

_“Yes.”_

__

Shivering, I reach between us and really look at his member for the first time. I was right about the not-purple prediction. 

__

“You have a nice cock, Alpha,” I murmur. He's so thick, it makes me pleasantly ache to look at. I loosely wrap a hand around his shaft, running my fingers over the precum-soaked head and thumbing the slit. 

__

“Eren.” He groans my name like a dying man’s hymn. 

__

“I know it hurts.” I run my free hand over his sculpted chest, testing hard muscle with my fingernails. “I’ll make it better.” 

__

I tighten my grip. Levi makes a puppy-like sound into my shoulder. 

__

“Show me how you like it,” I murmur. 

__

Levi’s calloused hand wraps around mine, and I let him guide my movements, stroking him with fast, deft movements. 

__

“Fuck.” His lips tremble against my skin. 

__

“Good?” I ask.

__

He whimpers. 

__

I press my face into his shoulder, unable to stop myself from smiling. Our heartbeats race against each other’s. “You feel good, Alpha,” I croon. Levi snarls. 

__

I check myself, searching for rising panic or nausea. 

__

I can’t find either. Instead, I’m… Powerful. 

__

I thumb Levi’s foreskin, sliding precum over his head and making my strokes wetter. He moans. He’s three fingers deep inside of me, and the stretch is both maddening and satisfying. Heat builds in my navel. 

__

“Omega,” Levi groans. 

__

Levi is the only person who’s ever called me Omega like it’s an adulation. 

__

“Yes,” I breathe, watching him twitch under my hands. “I’m Omega.” 

__

Levi pushes my hand away from his cock. Before I can frown, he grasps mine and presses our lengths together, stroking them both. I moan and wrap my hand around his, melting into the sensation of our cocks pressed together. 

__

Levi’s fingers twist inside of me. I know what he’s searching for. “Here,” I murmur, reaching behind me to adjust his wrist. “Like this.” I shudder when he presses into my prostrate. 

__

Our mutual masturbation had me on the edge before Levi found my prostrate, so when he starts massaging it relentlessly, it’s all over. I come over our hands, and Levi follows a moment later, shuddering. 

__

He spreads his palm over my navel, smearing our releases over me. “You like marking me?” I ask. 

__

“I like seeing myself on you.” 

__

I do too, I realize. I bite back a whine when Levi slips his fingers out of me. He sucks them clean and groans. “You taste incredible.” 

__

Oh, goddess. When he kisses me, I taste myself on his mouth. “I didn’t know that you were this filthy," I croak. 

__

“I’m not.” 

__

He presses a cup of water to my lips. I gulp it down, and he hands me a flakey bar. “Ration cakes,” He says. I take a bite.

__

“It tastes like sawdust,” I complain.

__

“Eat.” 

__

“Where did you get this?” I ask between bites.

__

“Hange came by while you were asleep.”

__

I groan. Fuck, the whole hall can probably hear and smell us. I don’t want to think about what questions Armin might ask. Or more like questions he’ll want to ask, but won’t bring up directly because he’s too polite, and we’ll sit together stewing in unspoken questions. 

__

“I’m surprised you’re not in rut,” I murmur, curling up against his chest. Glad, too though.

__

“Me too.” His brow furrows. “maybe it’s psychological. Rut would make this worse.”

__

I scowl. “Of course I have to get my heat, though.”

__

Levi wraps his arms around me. “It’s probably part of the healing process. Now that you’re safe, your body can relax and function normally.” He kisses my throat, and my toes curl. “It’s okay to let go now.” 

__

It does feel good, letting go. 

__

The last few days of my heat are better. Nothing goes wrong, and my nagging, irrational nerves become easier and easier to push into the back of my head. Levi stays careful even as we both go mad, relying on scent and body language to fill in the holes left by broken almost-words. The few things Levi does manage to say leave me soft and glowing. 

__

“Is this okay?” Before he puts his tongue inside of me.

__

“You’re so beautiful.” As he squeezes my hips, fingers tracing the curve of my pelvis.

__

“So brave.” Kissing my way up my body until he reaches my mouth.

__

“Omega.” Over and over again, like a prayer.

__

Finally, I wake up without the inescapable urge to nut. “Oh, thank fuck.” I bury my face into my pillow and stretch, wincing at how sore my hips and ass are. “Levi?” He’s sound asleep. I smile and ease his arm off of my waist. Days of crusted slick and cum flake off of my skin and the sheets. 

__

I need to shower. Now.

__

I bask in the hot water. My head replays a thousand memories that make me want to bury my face in my hands and scream into them like a virgin. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. 

__

When I finally get out of the shower and dry off, the man looking back at me from the mirror takes my breath away. 

__

Days of troubled sleep have darkened the skin under my eyes, and I feel dead on my feet, but my reflection glows. His smile and eyes are radiant, skin vibrant. My heart skips a beat. As tired as I am, lean muscle, starting to develop after nights on the mats, shifts under my skin. I feel like a lion. 

__

The one blemish is that fucking brand. I resist the urge to dig my fingers into it and scratch it apart, knowing that would only distort it. I’m going to get rid of it. Soon. And I’m going to relish it.

__

I don't bother to get dressed yet. After cleaning what is cleanable and throwing the window wide open, unable to keep myself from bouncing a little as I walk around my room, I dress and check on Levi.

__

The questions that hounded me before my heat still stand. 

__

I brush his bangs out of his eyes. His eyelids flutter, but he doesn’t wake.

__

As much as they linger, I’m not upset by their implications anymore.

__

Levi groans and stirs, blearily squinting up at me. “Did anyone ever tell you that it’s creepy as shit to watch people while they sleep?”

__

I flash him the vapid smile I used on the palace guards when I stole food. “Oh, Levi. You know I kill my victims in bed.”

__

Levi cringes. “How do you feel?” 

__

“Good. Tired. Hungry.” Knowing that I’m just going to get dirty again, but unable to stop myself, I swing a leg over his torso and straddle his lap. His hands automatically leap to my thighs. “Also, I uh, might have to burn my sheets.” 

__

He glances down at the blanket around his waist and winces. “You might be right.” 

__

“I’ll do it later.” I put my hands on the mattress on either side of his head. “Very stealthily.” I wrap my lips around his. 

__

Levi groans, and I shiver when his hands slide up the back of my thighs until they cup my ass. 

__

“Do you regret it?” He asks. 

__

Oh, that’s why he’s so nervous. It’s not just a protective instinct. 

__

“Nope.” I sit back into his lap. Hmm, I like this view. “No regrets. It wasn’t just the heat, you know.”

__

“I know.” He runs a thumb over my cheekbones. “But that now was the time you wanted to act on it…”

__

I smile and turn so that I can kiss the palm cupping my jaw. “It’s all good, Alpha.”

__

He hisses. “If my dick didn’t feel like it’s about to fall off, I would be hard.”

__

“That’s all it took to exhaust you?” I snort and grind down onto his lap. He growls and holds my hips in place. 

__

“Eren.”

__

I grin at him. “Disappointing.” 

__

He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”

__

I laugh. “Seriously, though, you should try to sleep a little more. You only napped a few times during my heat, right?”

__

He stretches. “I’m not sleeping in my own filth.” 

__

“Use my shower. I think I should, too.” Oh well. At least the officer’s wing always has plenty of hot water.

__

Levi groans. “You’re trying to kill me.”

__

“I just told you that, and you didn’t take me seriously.” I climb off of Levi and head back toward the bathroom, swinging my hips a little more than usual just for him. 

__

“Also,” I add over my shoulder, “I think I want to go to the mess hall for breakfast today.”

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eren kind of has a dark sense of humor, I think it's a coping mechanism for him.
> 
> Reactions? Theories? Hit me up! You guys feed me so well.


	5. Revitalization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did not expect to revisit some of my high school cafeteria anxieties, wow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Welcome back :).

Laughter. Rattling dishes. A barrage of unfamiliar scents. At least two hundred soldiers eating breakfast together at long tables. 

Why did I think that coming to the dining hall was a good idea? 

Levi hovers behind me, buzzing with repressed hostility toward the cacophony that stopped me in the doorway. “You don’t have to do this,” He says. A couple soldiers, drawn by my lingering pheromones and his presence, glance toward us. Levi stares them down. 

“I know.” I dig my fingers into my palms. “But I want to. Besides.” I nudge his shoulder. “I know what the other soldiers call you. If something goes wrong, I can trust Humanity’s Strongest to help me put some wayward alphas in their place, right?” His throat contracts. 

There are too many people to take in familiar faces, and I have no idea how the fuck this room even works, but before I can second-guess myself any more, I wade into the mess hall. 

Keeping my shoulders back and chin up, I grab a tray and step into the breakfast line. The beta in front of me turns and offers me a crooked smile. “Damn, you’re going to get a beatdown coming to chow dressed like that.” 

“Excuse me?” I squeeze the tray. 

He raises his hands. “You’re not in uniform. If your CO is that relaxed, shit, I wish I had them.” 

_I’m okay. Everything is okay._

The cook gives me the evil eye when I get to them – Because of the uniform thing again, or did I do something else? – but gives me eggs and toast without comment. I scan the room, searching for a familiar face, trying to keep heat from creeping up the back of my neck. 

Just as it becomes obvious that I don’t have anywhere to sit, a voice calls, “Eren!” 

I turn toward the sound, squinting into unfamiliar faces until Armin stands up and waves to me. 

Relieved, I hurry over. “Eren!” Armin beams. “It’s good to see you.” He scoots over and pats the spot next to him. “I didn’t know you were coming down, or I would have walked with you.” 

“It’s okay, I only decided to this morning.” I squeeze my legs under the low table. 

Unfamiliar eyes trace me from all angles. 

“Eren, these are my friends, Jean, Marco, Connie, and Sasha.” Armin gestures to the soldiers around us. 

I nod. “You guys are Levi’s soldiers.” “

We’re Captain Ackerman’s spec ops, yeah.” The guy with the gold stud – Jean? – says. 

“You’re the ghost,” Sasha says. 

I blink. “I’m what?” 

“We never see you around HQ,” Connie elaborates, “but, uh, we see you in the window.” 

Jean says, “We smell you, too.” 

On Levi. My chest flutters pleasantly. “You say that like it's a bad thing.” 

Jean wrinkles his nose. “I though the captain was here when you sat down.” 

“I mean.” I glance over my shoulder to the officer’s table at the front of the room. Levi and I lock eyes. 

_Are you okay?_

_Yes._ “He is here. Why, are you afraid of him?” 

Jean scowls. “Dude, you only see him- ow!” Mikasa don’t look up from her plate. Nobody looks me in the eye. 

“What, I only see him as…” I don’t like the way the word lover sounds out loud. My boyfriend? 

My mate? 

“My partner?” I finish. “It’s okay,” I say, trying to steady my racing heartbeat. “I know you guys know.” 

The pause is stifling. 

“Seriously. Armin said your unit was part of the Mitrian mission, it’s fine. I think it’s weirder to pretend you don’t know.” 

Marco gives me a slight nod. “Jean, you’re still being prickly. Be quiet and drink your coffee.” He nudges the alpha’s shoulder. To me, he adds, “He won’t be this grumpy when he wakes up.” 

“He definitely will be,” Connie says around a mouthful of egg. Sasha pilfers a slice of toast off his plate. 

“Not if I tell him not to.” Marco shoots Jean a sickly sweet smile. Good for you, Marco. 

Sasha perks up. “Hey, Bert told me that they’re going to be back from their expedition next week.” Connie pumps his fist. 

“Bert, Annie, and Reiner,” Armin cues me in. “They’re friends in a different unit.” 

“Did you guys all go through training together?” I ask the table. 

Mikasa nods. 

“Fuck that, man,” Jean says. “Eren, you’re lucky you haven’t dealt with training.” He shakes his head. 

“Is it bad?” I ask. 

Sasha makes a tormented sound. “Shardis.” 

“Shardis,” Connie agrees gravely. 

“He wasn’t very nice,” Marco admits. 

Mikasa scowls. “He was such a jackass, training us into the ground like that. Never put an insecure soldier in charge.” 

“What did he make you do?” I ask. 

“We had to wake up at four,” Jean says, “for a six mile run before breakfast. Then, after breakfast, we have drills, and if you threw up your food-,” 

“-which was going to happen at some point since it was right after breakfast-,” Sasha adds. 

“-yeah, and if you threw up, you get another three mile run. I think he wanted us to get hurt during hand-to-hand, too, I swear.” Jean continues. “The nurses had serious beef with him for sending them so many people.” 

“He was pretty Darwinian,” Armin murmurs. When I respond with a blank stare, he clarifies, “He wanted to weed out the weak.” 

“The food,” Sasha laments, “it was so bad. Only ration wafers.” I wrinkle my nose, remembering how the ration wafer tasted when Levi fed me one, and then immediately try to block thoughts of heat out of my head before my scent makes things awkward. 

“To be fair, though,” She adds, “the wilderness survival unit? That was really fun.” 

“For you,” Jean points out. 

“City boy,” Sasha scoffs. 

“Hey!” 

“Jean, I said you should be quiet and drink your coffee.” 

Jean scowls, but he takes a sip from his mug. 

“That sounds rough.” It’s not that I don’t sympathize with any of them, but compared to the shit I’ve dealt with, it sounds underwhelming. 

“It pays off,” Mikasa says. 

“Well,” Jean mutters, “sometimes.” He purses his lips like he’s sucking on a lemon again. “The barracks?” He shakes his head. “You have such a nice deal, man. In terms of your living situation,” He corrects quickly. “The officers’ wing is cushy as fuck. A private bathroom? I would kill to not have to take my showers cold and staring at fifty hair asses.” 

“Jean,” Armin cuts in, “if you’re looking at hairy asses in the shower, I think it’s because you want to-,” 

"I would never cheat on Marco!” 

“Awe, Jeanbo,” Marco teases. Jean turns beet-red. Catching my eye, he warns, “Don’t start.” 

“Jeanbo,” I repeat. 

“So help me goddess.” 

“Try it,” I tease. 

His glances over my shoulder. “Yeah, no, I like being alive, thanks.” 

I preen under Levi’s watchful eye. Some alphas have their uses after all. 

“The corps,” I drop the teasing. For now. “What is it like, being a soldier?” 

“Are you thinking about joining?” Marco asks. 

I shrug. “Maybe.” 

“Eren has the article you did after Mitras with the Berg,” Armin betrays me. 

“Hey!” 

Marco blushes. “The legion is fine,” Mikasa says. 

“We’re getting a lot of good press right now because of Mitras,” Jean says. Everyone eyes me whenever anyone says the country’s name, but I’m fine. “It’s borderline propaganda, the way the media reports on us. Before Mitras fell, the papers couldn’t stop talking about Commander Smith impressing criminals from the underground and covering up their rap sheets. Now, you’d think they want to make him a saint.” 

“Would you change your mind, though if you could?” I ask. “About joining, I mean.” 

Silence. I fidget. 

“No,” Armin says, “but it might be a harder choice.” The others murmur in agreement. 

Nobody says anything for a moment. Fuck, I killed the mood. 

Then Armin, bless his soul, says, “Hey, Sasha, I overheard Major Hange and Squad Leader Zacharias talking about when this month’s meat rations are coming in.” 

“Really?” She leans in. “When? Where? Eren!” I jump. “You stay in the officers’ wing. You’d have access to it.” She flashes me puppy-dog eyes. 

“Sasha, no,” Connie says. 

She pouts at him. “Traitor. You know you want some, too.” 

“Not more than I want to be court-marshalled!” 

“Awe babe, not even for me?” Sasha coos. 

“No!” 

“But yours is my favorite kind of meat!” 

Jean puts his head in his hands. 

“Oh, get a room,” Mikasa says. “Or I’ll hit you with my bagel.” 

“Your bagel?” Sasha repeats. 

“They’re pretty stale today.” Mikasa bangs hers on the table, and a dull thunk echoes through the mess hall. Jean and I eye our own untouched bagels - rocks? - warily. 

“If you don’t want it,” Sasha says, “I’ll eat it.” 

“No. I hate that,” Mikasa mutters. 

“Food waste is bad, Mika!” 

“So is chipping all of your teeth.” But Mikasa offers Sasha a small smile. 

“Sasha, no more coffee, please.” Marco says. 

“I’m sorry Marco,” Sasha says, “I love you, but-,” 

“-we need to feel it coursing through our veins,” Connie finishes. Sasha nods in agreement. Marco cringes. 

My coffee is okay, but I like tea better. 

It’s not as awkward to sit and listen to them talk as I worried it would be. As comfortable as they are with each other, they’re still friendly to me, and Armin’s murmured sidenotes thankfully fill in some of the blanks about inside jokes and references. It’s… pretty nice, sitting here with them. 

More than that, I feel safe. Even though countless alphas and beta sit behind my back, and it’s too loud to tell if someone’s sneaking up behind me, I don’t need to give in to my adrenaline. If something happens, I can protect myself, and there are people around me, Armin and Marco for sure and likely their friends, who would step in. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Levi surveying the room with pantherine alertness, gaze always returning to me. Warmth bubbles in my stomach. He is the eyes in the back of my head. 

The dining hall begins to empty out, and Armin and his friends leave to get ready for their patrol. Alone at the table, I close my eyes, trying to steady my nerves. 

It went fine. Everything will be fine. 

“Eren!” Hange sits down next to me. “How are you doing, buttercup? Did Shorty take care of you?” 

“Uh, I’m good. And no comment.” Levi and Erwin, still at the officer’s table, sit in deep conversation. Levi’s irritation rankles the bond, and I take a step back from it before his emotions complicate my conversation with Hange. It’s becoming easier and easier to control our involvement with each other’s thoughts, and although Levi’s always there, I don’t worry that his mind and wants will influence mine. 

Unless I want them to. 

Hange wiggles their eyebrows. “Fair enough. Listen.” They lean in. “How are your appointments with Nifa going?” 

“Um, they’re really helpful. I mean, it’s still… you know.” Hange nods. “But I feel a lot better. Some things stopped triggering me anymore.” 

“That’s great news!” Hange beam. 

“Yeah, I’m really glad.” 

“If there’s anything I can help you with, let me know, okay? Anytime.” 

“Yeah, I will. Thanks Hange. Seriously.” 

“Awe, anything for my boy!” They thump me on the back. 

I feel Levi’s proximity before he speaks over my shoulder. “Your boy? Are you ditching me, Eren?” 

We haven’t been apart long, but his proximity makes my instincts explode. I lean back into his chest and look up at him. “Sorry,” I flash him my best puppy-dog eyes, “but Hange’s tall. We’re eloping.” Hange snorts. 

“Damn,” Levi says, face unreadable. “Guess it’s me and Erwin, then.” 

I wrinkle my nose. “You’d leave me for someone with his eyebrows?” 

“You just said you would leave me for Four-eyes.” 

“Hange is kind. You slander everyone.” 

“Now Erwin’s an exception.” 

“Stop trolling me, you know you would never.” 

“Well,” He says mildly, “I didn’t think you would make this choice either, but here we are.” 

Goddess, this man. 

Hange squeals. “You two are so cute! I never thought I would see the day when you would become so fluffy, Levi!” They pat my wrist. “You’re fascinating, Eren. Shorty was always so austere about omegas.” 

“Don’t you have better things to do?” Levi asks. “Moblit was looking for you earlier.” 

“Oh!” Hange slaps the table, making me jump. “That’s right, we have experiments to run.” They giggle. “I’ll see you lovebirds later!” 

Once they walk up away, I ask Levi, “Are you okay?” 

“Eyebrows is annoyed that I went MIA last week.” Because of my heat. I flush. 

“Sorry.” 

“It’s the only thing he hasn’t accounted for in years, he can handle it.” He says. 

I lace our fingers together and press his wrist against my neck gland, soothing both of us. The need to be with him didn't dissipate with my heat instincts. If anything, it’s more intense. 

"I have to go," he says, "to drill the brats." 

“Wow, it’s not just Erwin you’re leaving me for?” 

He squints at me for a moment before he catches the double meaning and groans. “Goddess, Eren, hold it together until later, okay?” 

Mmm, okay. "Fine, leave me here." I turn away from him in mock irritation, but he catches my chin and pulls me back for a quick kiss. 

Like always, kissing him reduces my brain to static, and he's blushing a little when he pulls away. "Later, Eren." 

He leaves me touching my lips. 

I go to breakfast more often, and then go to other things with Armin's - and, more and more, my - friends. Sasha, I learn, is an avid horsewoman, _who Cleo listens to_. Jean is not an avid horseman, although you would think he would be given how much he looks like one of the geldings. _And Cleo listens to him, too, what is her problem._

The days are usually soft, although sometimes they're bad and nothing helps, but those days become less common. I’m happy. I’m safe. Dreams, desires, pleasures – I have them, and they are mine. 

Summer gives way to fall, and then to winter. 

Which means snow. 

“It’s so beautiful, Levi.” I draw patterns on his chest, lulled to laziness by the barrack’s good central heating and the flurries falling on the other side of the window. My ears still burn from being outside in the snow, but it was worth it. 

“Mmm.” But he isn't looking at the snow when he agrees, he’s looking at me. 

Levi pulls the blanket up over my shoulders. “You should wear more layers when you go outside in this weather.” His lips tickle my pulse point. “You might have escaped pneumonia when we went riding in the rain, but you’re pushing your luck.” 

“I wasn’t cold.” Until the very end of the snowball fight, when the snowball Jean jammed down the back of my shirt melted and refroze. “Besides.” I walk my fingers down his chest. “You’ll warm me up now, right?” 

Levi groans. “Give me a moment.” 

“Can’t get it up?" I jab. "Wow. My heat really was the best you could do.” He looks up at me with hooded eyes, and I grin, heat curling in my stomach. 

“You keep wiggling your cold toes against my calf. Makes me not want to get hard.” He closes his eyes. 

“Wow. I’ll just-,” I move to roll off of him. 

“No.” He winds his arms around me like a grouchy anaconda. 

“Pretty eager for someone who was just complaining about my toes,” I mutter, nipping his earlobe. 

I yelp as he rolls us over, instinctively spreading my legs so he can slot between them. His consciousness is soft against mine. _Alright?_

_Yes, don’t worry._

“You’re such a little shit, Eren.” 

“You keep complaining, but you don’t do anything about it.” 

Levi lets out one of his chuffing laughs. He props himself up on his forearms, making his biceps bulge deliciously. I shudder, hyperaware of our naked bodies, and Levi starts kissing a line down my body. First my forehead, then nose, mouth, jaw, throat, collarbone, sternum. Then wraps his lips around my nipple. 

"Alpha!" I gasp, jumping under the sudden contact. Levi purrs. My face is on fire, but I don’t want him to stop. 

Levi finally releases my nipple with a pop, and I track the thin strand of saliva connecting my areola and his lips. 

"Beautiful," He says, leaning down to envelop my other nub in his warm mouth. 

"Ah!" I tangle my fingers in his hair and tug him closer, every sharp inhale pressing my chest into his mouth. Levi puts more of his weight on me, pronounced hipbones digging into mine, and I groan when our erections grind against each other. 

Levi pulls away and looks down at me with eyes bright enough to glow. “You’re so perfect, Eren.” I shiver pleasantly when he runs a hand down my side.

You’re not so bad yourself.” I ogle him shamelessly. 

“Mmm.” He lies down between my legs again, this time scooting far enough down the bed to put his face level with my navel. “But you’re something different, fuck.” He mouths at my stomach. My breath stutters. “Are you slicking for me?” He asks, voice ragged. Touches and kisses pepper me like the snowflakes did earlier – his mouth on my hips, my abs, lifting one of my legs to taste the skin on the inside of my thighs. 

“Maybe,” I close my eyes, savoring how not being able to see his hands on my body makes every touch even more electric. 

“Maybe?” Levi drawls. 

"That's what I said, isn't t?" 

“Who else would it be for, Hange?” 

“Levi!” I try to kick him, but my leg only jerks in his grip. Fuck, he’s nice to be manhandled by. 

He blinks up at me slowly. “Is it?” 

I fold my arms over my chest and glare up at the ceiling. “Way to ruin the mood.” 

“I’m joking.” He kisses my ankle, and I resist the urge to squirm. 

“Go away.” 

“But this is my room.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“Eren,” He croons. 

“Get out.” 

“I’ll make it up to you.” 

I open my eyes. He looks back at me from between my legs, unblinking. 

“How?” I ask. 

He checks me again, brushing up against my thoughts. _Okay?_

_Do it, please._ I’m going to combust if he doesn’t. 

He maneuvers a pillow under my hips and grip the sheets in anticipation for what’s to come. 

“I can’t believe it sometimes,” Levi murmurs, running his hands over my chest and stomach. “That you’re here.” I never thought anyone, let alone a soldier, could have such gentle hands. “That you’re with me…” 

My breath hitches when his lips flutter against the insides of my thighs like butterfly wings. “Me neither,” I whisper. 

“You’re so beautiful.” 

“You keep saying that.” 

“Because it’s true.” He groans. “Fuck, you always make me wax poetic.” The way his eyes can’t sit still, always darting from my face to my torso to between my legs and back again, make me spread my legs a little wider. “What do you want, Omega?” 

“Um.” I squeeze the sheets. “Same boundaries as always. But within that, just- go for it.” 

He takes the invitation and spreads my cheeks. “Fuck, I barely touched you, and you’re already so wet.” He presses his index finger against my rim, and I gasp. “And so sensitive.” 

“And you’re already so hard,” The head of his cock is so inviting, fuck. I want to wrap my lips around it and swallow until it hits the back of my throat. 

“Damn fucking right.” I mean to laugh, but it comes out as a breathy moan. I grind down on his finger, but he doesn't fuck me. “Levi,” I beg. "Put it in already." 

He teases my rim. "First you try to kick me out of my own room, and now you demand sex," He muses. "Rude." 

"Levi, please," I whimper. 

"That's more like it." I cry out as the finger slides in without resistance. Desperate, I grind back on the digit. 

"Fuck." Levi’s eyes follow my undulating hips with predatory intensity. 

"Good view?" I ask. 

He swallows hard. "The best." 

Knowing that it’s playing with fire, I ask, “Does it make you want to put your cock in my ass?” 

His eyes snap to mine, blown wide. “Eren?” 

“Not- ah,” I convulse around him. “Not now. But…” He’s so dazed, it’s cute. My lips curl. “Do you like the picture? Because I do.” 

“Fucking minx, Eren.” He shoves in a second finger, and my head lolls as he immediately drills my sweet spot. 

“And if I’m so – oh! – sensitive now, just imagine…” I grin at him. The veins in his neck jump. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? Or were you already wondering- Levi!” He massages my sweet spot. 

“You want my cock in you?” He demands, adding a third finger. 

“Would you want to?” The smell of slick, precum, and him, leather and bergamot and a note that I can only describe as _Levi,_ makes me high. 

“Is that a rhetorical question?” He asks, almost snarling. 

“Only.” I close my eyes, trying to focus through my nerves and dizzying pleasure. “Only if you want it to be.” 

Levi makes a destroyed sound. I chirp back and writhe on the mattress, trying fruitlessly to relieve myself. Squirming only spreads my scent over the sheets as my swollen glands beg him to _come here, inside, right now._

His fingers disappear. “Levi!” 

“Shh.” He scoots down the bed. “I got you." I prop myself up on my elbows. “What are you- _oh._ ” 

I’ve never seen anything more erotic than Alpha sinking his tongue into my hole, grinding into the sheets as he starts eating me out like his last meal on earth. 

My head thumps against the mattress as I buck into his hands, every nerve ending on fire, and _oh my god, the slurping sounds._

“Fuck, Eren,” He comes up for air, pining me with wide-blown pupils. His mouth and chin shine with slick, and my mouth goes dry because we look _good_ debauched like this. “I’m fucking drowning down here.” 

“Please don’t die.” I arch my back, trying to lure him back in. “I need your dick for later.” 

“Fucking unbelievable.” He says before he wraps his lips back around my rim. 

I moan brokenly. “Yes, Alpha.” He laughs, and the vibrations against my entrance make my toes curl. 

The wet noises, lightning shooting up my spine, his hands searing my thighs – oh, goddess, it’s all too much. I cry out, pressing against the hot muscle sinking deeper and deeper inside of me, the fingers pressing into me with it, the hand stroking my cock- 

Levi’s hips stutter into the mattress at the same time I break, jerking as my orgasm washes over me. 

My ears ring as I come down from my high, and the mattress dips as Levi gets up and starts cleaning up. A damp washcloth cools my sweaty skin. 

“’Evi,” I murmur. 

“That good?” He asks. Smug ass. 

I reach out to him, and he crawls into my arms. “You’re forgiven,” I mumble into his skin. “For now.” 

"Little shit." He kisses my jaw. "You can't just drop ideas on me like that." 

"Whoops," I whisper against his mouth. 

"Are you trying to kill me?" 

"I said I needed you alive for your dick, didn't I?" I curl into his chest, unable to look at him. 

His heartbeat sounds like he's running a marathon. "Eren, if you only meant it in the moment-," 

"I don't." 

He exhales shakily and brushes a loose strand of hair out my face,l. It's pointless. My hair is even more untamable after sex than it usually is. "I'm not going to hurt you. Ever." 

"I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't believe that." <"Nothing has to change if you don't want it to," He murmurs. 

"It still will, though." I bury my nose into the gland on his neck. "But it's okay. It's for the better." 

Between the cold outside and my afterglow, I can feel a nap coming on. Levi sighs and mutters something. "What?" I ask. 

"I almost almost died, fuck." 

"Wow." I scrape my nails over his abs. "I thought you were in good enough shape to be safe from a heart attack. My bad." 

I love Levi’s little laughs. Just like I- 

Oh, fuck. 

“Eren?” He murmurs. 

“It's-." I close my eyes. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but either way, I could fly right now. 

"It's okay," He murmurs. "Me too." 

Chest to chest, mouth to mouth, I fall apart right. 

My veneration is so agonizing because it’s not mine at all. 

It’s ours. 

♦♦♦

“Aaaand… That’s it!” Hange sets their scalpel aside. I groan and relax my grip on the examination table. My now-unbranded thigh, throbbing after the procedure, burns again when Hange applies a disinfectant spray. “How are you feeling?” 

“Good.” I study the wound. It’ll scar, but unlike the scar Hange removed, I’m okay with this one. I haven’t, and probably will never, be able to completely escape what happened to me, but getting rid of the brand puts my ghosts in their place. 

“Try not to get it wet for the next week or so,” Hange advises, wrapping my thigh in gauze. You remember how to keep your bandages dry during showers?” I nod. “Good! I would take it easy for a little while.” They raise an eyebrow at me. “And when I say take it easy, that includes with whatever you and Levi do together.” 

“Yeah, I know.” No big deal. There are plenty of things we can do that don’t require a lot of leg movement. 

“Come back to my office in a few days, and I’ll check up on it,” Hange says. “If the area starts to feel tender or you notice any pus or redness, come right away, okay? Infections become nasty pretty quickly with large incisions like this.” 

“Sounds good.” I flex my leg. The bandage is tight, but the placement doesn’t restrict my movements, and the pain isn’t too bad. “Thank you so much Hange, seriously.” 

They pat me on the knee. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Do you want any painkillers for it?” 

“No, that’s okay.” 

“You got it! Let me know if you change your mind. Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?” 

Levi offered to come with me to the scar removal, but I turned him down. 

“Um, actually yeah, there is,” I start. 

Part of it was that this was something that I needed to do by myself. 

“It’s um,” Hange watches me with an expectant half-smile, and I know that, as much as they’re professional, they know where this is going. 

But I'd also feel awkward if he was here for this question, even though I bet he's already guessed. 

“There’s something I need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK I love them so much T-T
> 
> Chuffing is actually a [noise that big cats make](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDm1pG0LNzc).


	6. Revenant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotional smut. Eren making cheeky puns. The end. :')

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for the longer-than-usual wait! This was the only chapter that I didn't finish drafting back in December, so I had some work to do, and I got writer's block there for a bit. But it's all good now. :) Enjoy!

I shower beforehand. Wiping a circle in the steamed-over mirror, I gaze into my own glittering eyes. My lips curve into a soft, enticing smile, and my cheeks flush from the scalding water. I lean onto the counter and arch my back, noting how the angle accentuates my ass. The wide scar at the top of my thigh, all that’s left of Mitras’ physical touch, shimmers like pearl. 

I understand who Levi looks at when he sees me.

“I’m going to enjoy you,” I tell myself. 

The plush robe that I tie around my waist doesn’t feel anywhere near as luxurious as my skin. 

I knock on Levi’s door. “Come in,” He calls.

He’s already in bed, sprawled over the mattress with one arm tossed across his face. “Already going to sleep? Your age is showing,” I tease, walking across the room. 

“Is it?” He knows exactly what he does to me when he stretches. 

“Yes.” Not with that eight-pack. “I think I saw some grey hairs last night.” I sit on the edge of the bed and lean over to kiss him. 

I don’t know whether he knows what he’s doing when he touches my navel. Recently, his scent has richened with impending rut, and it’s more and more difficult to stop myself from bending over for him every time he walks into a room. Alpha’s domineering, intoxicating scent makes me want to beg him to slide his cock into me and never pull out, and his attention to my stomach betrays his instinctual hyperfixation with putting a pup in Omega’s womb.

He won’t get a pup for the foreseeable future, but the thought still makes my insistent, pre-heat instincts whine. My breath hitches. 

Picking up on my emotions, Levi’s eyes darken, and he slips a hand under my robe. I catch his wrist. “Eren?” He asks.

“Levi…” Butterflies swell in my stomach, chest, head – they threaten to choke me, to tear through my skin and leave me crumpled on the floor. “Do you remember what you told me on the first night you ran into me outside of my room? When I hurt my wrist?”

His brow furrows. “That you’re a dumbass?”

“I mean, that too, but that’s not what I was thinking of.” I run a hand over his chest, and his muscles jump under my touch. “Every night,” I start, turning to mush from just thinking about the words, “I go to sleep in a warm bed, on a full stomach, unafraid of who might take advantage of the dark.” 

His eyes widen as I echo what he said last summer. “And I do those things because I’m strong, yes, and I’ve begun to heal,” I continue, “but I couldn’t have done it without the person I fall asleep next to, on that full stomach, in that warm bed.” I smile down at him. The emotions in the bond are indescribable. 

“I couldn’t do it without the person who comforts me when my nightmares wake me up. The person who taught me how to make a fist after I nearly broke my hand. The person,” My voice cracks, “who I need.”

Levi’s eyes are too glossy. Mine, too. “I need you,” I whisper, “and I trust you, and I’m so, so happy that you’re my mate, because I could never want to be with anyone else the way I want to be with you.”

“Eren,” Levi’s voice cracks. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me down to his chest, cradling me. _Alpha’s crying._ My heart aches. 

I kiss him hard enough to make him gasp for air. Words can’t describe the emotions in the bond in any way other than a lackluster one. 

But that’s okay, because they don’t need to be said. 

I could kiss him forever, but I have a plan. Breaking away from his lips, I swing a leg over his thighs, straddling his crotch.

I check myself for the millionth time and confirm that, yes, I want this. 

“Do you want to go farther?” I ask. 

I feel, rather than hear, how Levi’s breath catches. His pulse flutters under my fingers. 

“How much farther?” He asks, pining me with a hungry gaze.

I didn’t think it was possible, but the question stokes my passion for him even hotter. He knows exactly how far I mean, but he wants to make sure. 

“Have sex with me.” I put a hand against his cheek, and he presses his nose into my wrist, inhaling my scent. 

“It’s… Eren I haven’t-,” I love watching Levi squirm. “It’s been a while.”

“But do you want to?”

He responds with a short, jerky nod. 

I take a deep breath and steady myself on his chest, spreading my hands over his stomach to keep my balance. “Then that’s okay.” I’m a little nervous too. As far as I’m concerned, this is my first time. People only did things to me in Mitras, not with me, so I’m not going to count any of that. 

“You have to tell me,” He says huskily, “if I hurt you, or if I do something that you don’t want-,”

“I will.” I smile at him. “But I trust you.” 

He touches me like he wants to eat me. 

I untie my robe and push the fabric off of my shoulders, exposing my naked body. 

Feeling his mind go blank is insanely satisfying. Shivering, I arch my back a little and scrape my nails over his chest and pecs, watching his reaction to my show from under low lashes.

"Eren," Levi’s voice cracks. "Shit, wait. Contraception?"

"Already went to Hange," I reach behind my back and touch my entrance, shivering at how wet I already am. Two fingers fit easily. “But I have condoms in my room, if you want a physical barrier?” I breathe between pants, admiring him underneath me. “The tests that Hange gave me when I came here were all negative.”

He shakes his head. 

“Good.” I choke on a gasp when I find my sweet spot. “because I want to feel all of you.” He runs a hand down my body and squeezes my hip. I melt under his touch. “We’re going to make each other feel good, Alpha,” I promise. Levi growls at the instinctual endearment. 

Someday soon, I’ll give in to my heat dreams and present for him, but for now, I want to see his face when he fucks me. "Shit." I bite my lip. The wet sounds of my fingers in my hole echo in the silent room. 

“You already went to Hange,” Levi says, half to himself. “How long have you planned this for, omega?" The pet name hits me like a drug, and a wave of slick runs down the insides of my thighs. 

“Since- ohhh." I tremble when I find my sweet spot. “Before my heat.” Levi swears, and I laugh. 

I stop touching myself, whimpering softly at the emptiness. Levi growls in response. 

I reach between my legs and free his erection from his briefs, wetting my lips at the swollen, precum-glossy length. I wrap my slick-soaked fingers around his rock-hard shaft and stroke. His preferences are muscle memory now. Levi shudders, lost to me.

“I love your cock.” I swipe his foreskin and head, reveling in his quiet groans. “So nice and thick. It always feels good when you put your fingers in me, but… I can’t stop thinking how much better this would be.” 

"Eren," He says, and I shudder at the promise in his voice. 

I slide my hand down his shaft until I reach the ridge of tissue at the base of his cock that expands into his knot. 

“Omegas’ mates can knot them outside of their cycles, right?” I squeeze the knot, and Levi bucks into my hand, head slamming against the mattress. “Do you want to knot me?” I kiss the tip of his cock. Levi clings to the bedsheets for dear life. “Because I want you to,” I tell him.

The idea of being connected to him for a little longer, stretched even fuller than when he fucks me, extending our pleasure, sends a new rush of slick dripping from my entrance.

I reposition myself in his lap so that his erection bumps against my ass. Grinding onto his crotch, I sigh when his thick erection slips between my cheeks. His briefs are wet. From my slick? His pre-cum? Both probably, fuck. 

“Tease,” Levi moans. He tightens his grip on my hips and presses his hips into my ass. 

I laugh breathlessly and arch into the girth insistently pressing against my rear. “You’re one to talk.”

Levi takes a hand off my hips and unceremoniously presses three fingers inside of me.

I gasp and jolt forward, grabbing his shoulders while he spreads my body wide open. “Alpha!”

“Shit, you’re soaked.” He says against my ear, using a shattered tone I’ve never heard from him before. “Sitting on my lap like I’m your throne.” Moaning, I grind down on his fingers, desperate to be full. 

“You want my cock, Omega?”

“Yes!” I arch my back, trying to take him deeper. Once again, he’s making sure. Overcome with emotion, rim twitching around his fingers, I lean down for a kiss. 

Levi slides his fingers out when we break away to draw breath. He presses a butterfly kiss to my shoulder. “Go ahead, then.”

Shivering, I take his length and bring it to my entrance, rubbing it into the copious slick. Levi growls, and I raise myself up, position him, and slowly, slowly, sink down onto his length. "Oh my g- Levi!"

A dull ache blossoms in my hips as I fully impale myself on his cock. I gasp, keeping my trembling hands on his stomach to steady myself as I try to process how full I am of his hot, throbbing dick. Levi’s balls twitch against my ass, and I slowly roll my hips, mouth dropping open in a soundless scream as the ridge of his head rub my insides j-u-st right. 

“Okay?” He asks. 

I mean to say something like _better than okay,_ but the only noise I’m capable of is a broken whine.

I desperately lock eyes with him as I rise and then drop down on his cock with a cry. Levi laces our fingers together, and I squeeze his hands as I work into a rhythm, bouncing up and down on his cock. 

He's perfect. What was the bullshit I used to think? That being mates just meant good gene combinations for babymaking? It does, but fuck, it also means everything else. 

Levi sits up, grabbing my knees and pulling them around his hips. I lock my feet behind his back and grab his shoulders, burying my face into his neck and rocking down into his lap. 

“Good?” He asks, sprinkling kisses down my neck. 

“Yes!” The powerful, relentless rhythm makes me cry, hips jerking under his hands. For the first time, sex feels good, comfortable, wanted. I gasp mindlessly into his skin. 

Levi groans. “Fuck, Omega, you feel perfect.” His lips tremble when he kisses me. "Do you want to feel you?" He murmurs. When I reach out through the bond, I cry out at his pleasure, my own euphoria compounded by our shared emotions. His instincts are haywire, consumed by Levi's success wooing me.

Mine are singing too. Finally, my mate and I can completely unite, and it’s worth everything we struggled through to get here. 

“Levi!” I moan. “Levi, say it, please say it. I want to hear you tell me.” We fit together so perfectly. I never want to be disconnected from him. 

Levi’s answering, throaty moan in my ear sends another wave of pleasure up my spine. “Eren,” He purrs, “Eren, I love you.”

I tangle my hands in Levi’s hair. His grip is gentle but firm as we rock together. “I love you too,” I gasp, mindless with the ache and heat of his length sliding in and out of me. 

He’s too out of it to be able to kiss, so he only brushes his trembling lips over my cheeks and nose. 

“Alpha!” I convulse around his cock as Levi hits the spot inside of me that makes my toes curl. "Levi! I-Ah!" It’s too good. I need him in every possible position, gently and roughly, fast and slow, until I combust.

"Yeah?" Levi moans. "Right there?”

"Don't stop!" I sob. 

"Are you going to come?" Levi asks. His fingers dig into my ass, and he pulls my cheeks apart, holding me still and thrusting into me as hard as he can. I shriek when his hip bones dig into my ass, the added depth sending me over the edge. Levi shudders and fucks me through my orgasm, movements becoming vicious and irregular until he pushes his knot inside of me and goes rigid.

I gasp softly when hot come floods my insides. 

I run my hands over Levi's back, biting my lip at the welts I left when I clawed at my shoulders. "I'm sorry I scratched you," 

He kisses my throat. "I liked it." 

Another wave of come spills inside of me. I moan. My stomach is already distended. Levi lies us down on our sides, maneuvering us into a more comfortable position to rest. “How long will your knot last?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Haven’t used it before.”

He scents me, searching for any signs of pain or distress, but he’s not going to find any. I’m floating. 

I crack up.

“What is it?” Levi murmurs, drifting in knot-induced docility.

“I understand why you wanted to teach me to ride.” 

Levi opens one eye. “Why?”

I nibble on his ear. “Because you’re hung like a horse.”

His gaze sharpens. “Leave.”

“I can’t, remember?” I clench down on his knot, and we both moan. “Because you’re a stallion-,”

“Eren.” Levi groans. 

“-who fucked me too good.” I kiss his nose. “You’re a stud.” When he makes a pained noise, I relent. For now. 

He keeps looking at me. “Do I look pretty on your knot?” I ask.

“You’re glowing,”

“I’m really happy.” His skin on mine is sublime, and the bond is thick with our shared bliss. I could lie here forever. 

I wasn’t sure I would ever do it, but here we are. Levi brushes my hair out of my face. 

“You passed,” I decide.

“You’re testing me?” He raises an eyebrow.

“You auditioned,” I smile at him. “And did well enough to get a callback.” 

Levi snorts. 

“For our cycles,” I add quietly. 

Levi doesn’t respond for a long moment. “It’s not going to be like last time,” he says. “We’re going to be synced up, so… I won’t have the same presence of mind that I had before.”

I smile. “I know. I’m looking forward to it.” I’m glad that he was tame today, in case something had gone wrong, but I’m not afraid of him losing control. 

I sniff.

“Eren?” Levi pulls away, studying my expression with wide eyes. “Shit. Did I hurt you?”

I shake my head and smear my tears over my cheeks. “N-no, I’m just…” I tug on his shoulders.

He winds back around me like a concerned anaconda. “Fuck, I’m sorry-,”

“No, really, you didn’t do anything. I’m…” I shake my head. “I never thought I would get this.” I gesture between us. 

Levi rubs our throats together. The scent marking loosens my limbs, and my hiccups stop. “You deserve this. Always.”

He purrs for me until the tears stop. 

“Hey, Levi?” I whisper. His knot still hasn’t gone down, and my ass aches pleasantly after being stretched for so long.

“Mmm?” 

“I’m going to tell Erwin I’m joining the legion.”

“I figured.” 

“What do you think of me doing it?” 

Levi kisses my forehead. “You’ll be a capable soldier. I’m not worried, and if you want to do it, I have your back.” His mouth slips down my jaw and covers my scent gland. Instinctively, I tilt my head back to give him a better angle, and he croons approvingly. 

Levi is so beautiful, his bare body powerful and pink-tinged. He pulls away from my throat, licking my oils from his swollen lips, and we lock eyes. Our souls are so stuffed with mutual veneration, we could shatter. 

“Why did you join the legion?” I ask, trying to herd my thoughts into something coherent. “Since you clearly don’t love it.” It clicks the moment the words leave my lips. “You didn’t want to, did you?”

“No,” He confirms. 

“Jean said something at breakfast, the first day I went,” I murmur. “About… Erwin impressing people from the underground?”

“Erwin found me when the island was still at war with Marley,” Levi says. “the legion’s casualty numbers were apocalyptic, and the press was so bad, the military commissioner considered ordering the legion to disband. Erwin needed to bring down the casualty numbers, but he couldn’t, so instead, he manipulated the casualty rates.”

“By inflating the number of soldiers in the legion,” I realize. “That way, casualties would look like a smaller proportion of troops.”

“Mmm.” 

“And he couldn’t get recruits from the training corps fast enough, so he went to the underground.” 

“My brother, sister and I stole,” Levi says. His gaze doesn’t waver, but his anxiety twists behind his face, writhing in our minds. “We got good enough for him to notice, so it was either the legion or prison, and fuck, it’s not a hard choice.” 

“I’m sorry about your brother and sister.” I kiss him. “And relax, I don’t give a shit about you stealing.” 

I yelp when he squeezes my ass. “Stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault. I thought that finally got through your thick skull.”

I hit his pec. “Yeah, yeah. Why did you stay after they died?”

Levi shrugs. “I’m tired of starting over from nothing, and my uncle taught me to fight people before my balls dropped. This is what I’m good at, and the people I care about are here.”

“I don’t get why you stick by Erwin,” I mutter.

“I hated him at first,” Levi agrees. “But this is a better life than I ever would have had if I hadn’t met him. And he fights for good things, even if he does some pretty questionable bullshit to achieve them.” 

I groan and let my head fall against his shoulder. “I just realized that I never would have met you without him. Fuck.” 

Levi laughs, and my heart soars.

I’m not sure how long I doze before Levi’s knot finally collapses. I yelp when he slides out and cum starts to spill out of my puffy hole. 

Levi rakes his gaze over me, and the smugness in the bond makes it hard to breathe. Keeping my eyes on him, I roll over onto my back and spread my legs, giving a front row-seat to the fluids dripping onto the sheets. “You really made a mess of me, huh Alpha?” 

He groans. “Jesus, Eren.”

“I bet you want to plug me up again, right?” I smile up at him. 

The veins in his throat jump, and that’s all the answer I need. He tears his gaze off of me. “Stay put, I’m getting a washcloth.” 

After Levi cleans up the worst of our mess, I nestle against Levi’s chest. Cocooned in clean sheets, I draw patterns on his shoulders. “Wanna go again later?” 

He groans. “I just cleaned up.”

“We can clean up again.” I give him my best puppy dog eyes.

“You’re going to be insatiable now, aren’t you?”

“Is that a problem?”

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

I snort. “What happened to being humanity’s strongest soldier? Don’t tell me a little omega brought you to your knees.”

Levi kisses me voiceless. “When that omega is you,” He says hoarsely, “always.” 

♦♦♦

_Thwop thwop thwop thwop_

The chopper blades are almost as fast as my heartbeat. Mikasa glances at me, and her lips move. I shake my head and point to our headsets. 

Her voice crackles over the line. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah.” I glance down at the Paradian interior below us, houses and streams and forests arranged like tiny models. 

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Levi’s voice crackles over the staticky connection. 

My stomach turns. So soon, but still an eternity. Levi feeds me a stream of empathy and confidence through the bond, and my shoulders loosen a bit. 

Apparently, it’s standard practice to put mates in the same unit. Erwin explained it as being advantageous for a unit’s communication, and mates’ desires to protect each other made them highly motivated soldiers. Between my bond with Levi and the fighting skills I’d picked up by the time I officially joined the legion, I was a good candidate to be fast-tracked for special forces. To my unpleasant surprise, Jean had understated how brutal basic training was, and Shardis was a rabid instructor, but graduating in my class’ top ten and accepting my new uniform from Levi at the induction ceremony made it all worth it.

He’d looked so fucking good in his dress uniform, too. Especially afterwards, when I pulled him into a back room and teased him into coming all over my face. 

Levi’s voices echoes over my headset again. “T minus ten minutes.” 

We knew this mission was coming for weeks, but of course I only get jittery now. 

“What’s the matter, Jaeger?” Jean asks. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of heights?” 

“Fuck off, horse boy.”

“Don’t you think that insult is getting tired by now?” Jean asks. 

“Don’t you think you would have learned not to try me by now?” I fire back. 

“All I’m saying is that maybe you don’t have the stomach for this,” Jean says, shrugging. 

“You better hope that I do,” I warn.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“If I throw up because I don't, I’ll make sure it's all over you.” 

“Hey!” Sasha makes a face. 

“So you admit it,” Jean says. Behind his back, Mikasa rolls her eyes. 

“No,” I respond. 

“That’s all you can say?” Jean demands. “No?”

“What else is there to say?” I ask. “There’s no point trying to reason with you.” 

“Oi, brats.” Levi turns around in his seat and glares at us. “You do understand that we’re about to carry out a mission, yeah? Rein yourselves in.”

“Sorry, Captain,” I drawl. 

He squints at me. “Watch it, Jaeger.” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

“Listen up!” He addresses the whole group. “Commander Smith’s unit has already engaged the insurgents. They’re going to give us cover while we get in and finish the job. Copy?” 

“Sir, yes Sir!”

“What’s the enemy’s position, Arlert?” Levi asks.

“Sir! They’re concentrated at the western edge of the valley, in the forest.”

Levi groans. “We’re going to have to lure them into the open. The tree cover will give them too much of an advantage otherwise. Remember that they tried to snipe the queen from a tree across from the palace, so If we do end up fighting them in the woods, always look up.”

Am I scared? Yes. Do I trust him and myself? Also yes. 

The chopper touches down. I step outside, wind from the rotors tossing my hair up around me, and shoulder my weapon. 

“Permission to use whatever force you deem necessary, granted,” Levi barks. We lock eyes one last time, and my throat closes up. The bond roars with love and grim determination. 

My life has always been about fighting someone or something, but for a long time, I was alone. I struggled in the dark, always hurt, not knowing whether I could trust that I or the people around me would still be alive in the morning. 

But this time, when I walk into the fray, Levi’s right next to me. 

From here on out, he always will be, and we’re all the stronger because of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that's all, folks! Thank you for hanging around for this incredibly self-indulgent fic. I didn't think that this project would end up being so long or that it would get the engagement that it got. The support means a lot to me, so thank you. :)
> 
> Catch me working on other projects in the future! If you want to check it out, I wrote [this smutty demon one-shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29578410) for a Valentine's event last week. The prompt was "raw", if that tells you anything. ;)

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](https://lady-bluebird-luv.tumblr.com/)


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